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Adam Berenson: Dwelling on Magic Mountain
by Karl Ackermann
Pianist and keyboardist Adam Berenson excels in various music genres including jazz, classical and electronica. His solo box-set Every Beginning is a Sequel (Dream Play, 2020) found the exploratory composer employing an arsenal of keyboards and high-end synthesizers in his original compositions. Berenson returns to that general cache of instruments for Dwelling on Magic Mountain, another solo outing. The six lengthy tracks cover a lot of stylistic ground. Dark and portentous, “Cryptomnesia" opens the set in a place ...
read moreAdam Berenson: Songs from the Garret
by Karl Ackermann
Adam Berenson's Songs from the Garret is a two-CD solo collection but the essence of other composers prowl in the shadows. The lofty album title pays tribute to particular compositions from Steve Swallow, Carla Bley, Michael Gibbs, Chick Corea and a host of others. Berenson, a well-versed composer/keyboardist, takes the unusual approach (for him) of focusing entirely on covers. The pieces on Songs from the Garret are broadly described by Berenson as “Boston standards." While most of these compositions are ...
read moreAdam Berenson: Homages and Worlds
by Karl Ackermann
Adam Berenson's Assemblages (Dream Play Records, 2021), a trio outing with bassist Scott Barnum and drummer Bob Moses, was the pianist/composer's return to an acoustic piano trio setting. But Berenson is a restless pioneer who plants a flag and moves on to new territory. Never far from his collection of electronics and synthesizers, he found a commanding tool for expression in his Sequential Prophet XL, a powerful seventy-six key sampler/synthesizer. On Homages and Worlds, Berenson pays tribute to a wide ...
read moreAdam Berenson, Scott Barnum & Bob Moses: Assemblages
by Karl Ackermann
Keyboardist and composer Adam Berenson has at his disposal an arsenal of instruments, electronics, synthesizers, etc. But to hear him in the traditional acoustic piano trio setting is immensely enjoyable, while hardly “traditional." On the double-disc Assemblages, Berenson puts aside his Korg Triton Extreme, Yamaha Symphonic Ensemble and other impressively named and plugged-in instruments in favour of the piano and colleagues Scott Barnum on double-bass and Bob Moses on percussion. The trio previously released three albums on the Dream Play ...
read moreAdam Berenson: Every Beginning Is A Sequel
by Karl Ackermann
Pianist/keyboardist/composer Adam Berenson--across more than twenty recordings--offers incontrovertible evidence that talent surpasses an affinity for category. He is equally at home with jazz, electronica, blues, or a string quartet. On his previous , fully-acoustic album, Stringent and Sempiternal (Dream Works, 2019) Berenson went in an unusual direction (for him), covering works of Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Wayne Shorter, Thelonious Monk, and Pat Metheny. His new solo box set Every Beginning Is A Sequel is an ambitious collection of electronic music ...
read moreAdam Berenson / Scott Barnum: Stringent and Sempiternal
by Karl Ackermann
Pianist and composer Adam Berenson and bassist Scott Barnum have been working as a duo for more than a decade. Two years ago, on Introverted Cultures (Dream Play Records, 2017), they were joined by guitarist Eric Hofbauer on a double-CD set of improvised pieces. Back as a duo formation on Stringent and Sempiternal, the pair offer music starkly dissimilar from the preceding album. Given the exploratory nature of Berenson's catalog, standards and covers are not expected, but there doesn't seem ...
read moreAdam Berenson / Scott Barnum / Eric Hofbauer: Introverted Cultures
by Karl Ackermann
On his 21st album, composer/pianist/electronic artist Adam Berenson continues his string of remarkable and unpredictable projects with Introverted Cultures. His early association with Paul Bley and a broad range of influences and interests have resulted in a harvest of creative music that shapes unexpected hybrids. Here we have a drummer-less trio for the first twelve tracks of this double CD and, in effect, three percussionists for the final eight. The first disc consists of relatively compact Berenson compositions and a ...
read moreAdam Berenson / Scott Barnum: Penumbra
by Karl Ackermann
Not one to be tethered to genres or styles, pianist and composer Adam Berenson has been long at home as a jazz pianist, a classical composer, an electronics player or any permutation of those roles. His previous double-CD Lumen (Dream Play, 2014)--complete with two string quartets--was indeed a far-ranging collection of styles and genres that the composer positioned in the broad category of chamber music. With the duo release Penumbra, Berenson and bassist Scott Barnum take to yet another experimental ...
read moreAdam Berenson: Lumen
by Karl Ackermann
More than forty years ago, Harry Nillson coined the phrase “A point in every direction is the same as no point at all" and as an axiom it has stood the test of time very well. However, Adam Berenson topples the adage with his unlimited imagination and a refined command of weaving multiple genres and sub-genres into a coherent and exceptionally engaging program. Having worked with pianist Paul Bley as a student of the New England Conservatory of Music, the ...
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