Defiance is sound against silence - fragile,eruptive, unbound.

Finnish saxophonist composer Esa Pietilä presents his most personal solo statement to date:eight original works, eight unfolding journeys -spheres of resonance, waves of liberation, fire, mist and crystalline edges.

Drawing on contemporary classical, avant garde and free-jazz vocabularies, Pietilä creates a cycle of contrasting sound worlds, from the circular resonances of ‘Sphere’ and the crystalline brilliance of ‘Diamond Jor’ to the eruptive intensity of ‘Fire’ and the spacious lyricism of ‘Colours of Liberation’.

Recorded in the extraordinary and resonant acoustics of the medieval Church of St. Lawrence in Finland, Defiance captures the full breadth of Pietilä’s sound: whispering, calling, resisting,expanding beyond boundaries. It is both a manifesto of freedom and a meditation on breath, silence and the human voice within one instrument.