“On the Wing” is Stephan Micus’s first album without voice since 1990 and in contrast to “Life” (2004) in which he set to music a Japanese Zen Koan this album is not built around a “libretto”. Although the titles of the individual pieces convey the musician’s close affinity to nature they are associative rather than descriptive. Nevertheless, the album is conceived as an entity. “For me this is like a journey or a story: the start of a movement that is transformed in many ways and eventually comes to an end”, says Micus of his ten-part suite. The first four pieces, for example, prepare for the large ensemble of the fifth, “The Bride”, which takes a central position also due to its ceremonial character. from ecm