"A Simple Fall" brings together two of Europe’s most distinctive voices in contemporary improvised music: French cellist Vincent Courtois and Swiss pianist Colin Vallon. Released by BMC Records, the Budapest label known as one of Europe’s most celebrated homes for contemporary classical and jazz, the album offers twelve pieces of uncommon intimacy and emotional clarity in contemporary minimalism.

Courtois, who has collaborated with the likes of Rita Mitsouko, Christian Escoudé, Michel Petrucciani or even Michel Portal, is no stranger to the BMC catalogue. His tone, equally capable of lyricism and restraint finds a remarkable counterpart in Vallon’s unique sense of portion when it comes to piano. Vallon, an internationally celebrated soloist known by his releases over ECM Records, is renowned for a touch that balances fragility and quiet intensity, shaping silence as much as sound.

The sessions that became A Simple Fall were marked by profound personal loss. The shadow of grief lends the album a restless depth, its music often suspended between stillness and turbulence. Therefore the album is overshadowed by an unflinching confrontation with absence.

Minimalism defines the duo’s language here. Every phrase feels carved with care, every pause deliberate. The cello’s raw edge and the piano’s hushed resonance create a fragile architecture, never ornamental, always essential. This spareness amplifies the underlying emotions: resignation,tenderness, resilience.