Shortly following the release of 恋愛至上主義 / Love Supremacism, Alexander Dubovoy is proud to release his new improvised solo piano EP Don’t Hate the Potate on Adhyâropa Records. It features a series of “improvised miniatures” dedicated to...potatoes. Though each piece was improvised on-site, the goal was to have them be focused and structurally clear.
Shortly following the release of 恋愛至上主義 / Love Supremacism, Alexander Dubovoy is proud to release his new improvised solo piano EP Don’t Hate the Potate on Adhyâropa Records. It features a series of “improvised miniatures” recorded by Hans Bilger in February 2024 in Berlin. Though each piece was improvised on-site, the goal was to have them be focused and structurally clear.
The inspiration for the album is the bizarre 2017 advertising campaign “Love Potatoes” in which the EU spent millions of euros trying to encourage Europeans to eat more potatoes by trying to make them…sexy? British tabloids went so far as to express their outrage at the objectification of the iconic tubers. And yet, such celebrations of the potato are perhaps not entirely uncommon—Germany, for example, has a Potato of the Year award.
Dubovoy, being a lifelong fan of the humble potato, needed no such convincing. Indeed, the potato is a star vegetable, eminently capable of feeding large populations and highly nutritious, that certainly does not deserve to be lumped in as a “bad carb”. It is, furthermore, integrally tied to a global history of European colonization of the Americas and subsequent proliferation of isolated varieties of New World crops into myriad global food cultures. The potato is also an unbelievably strange object aesthetically, somehow simultaneously devoid of features and yet incredibly anthropomorphic.
Over the course of 12 improvised miniatures on this EP, Dubovoy explores these various aesthetic and sociohistorical characteristics. The EP's recording process itself was an exploration of spontaneity and musical dialogue, of course, with the potato as a muse. The result is a collection of pieces that are at once whimsical and contemplative, challenging listeners to reconsider the qualities of the piano as an instrument and this humble root vegetable.
恋愛至上主義 / Love Supremacism and Don’t Hate the Potate are part of a double release, both recorded during the same chilly weekend in February 2024.
The inspiration for the album is the bizarre 2017 advertising campaign “Love Potatoes” in which the EU spent millions of euros trying to encourage Europeans to eat more potatoes by trying to make them…sexy? British tabloids went so far as to express their outrage at the objectification of the iconic tubers. And yet, such celebrations of the potato are perhaps not entirely uncommon—Germany, for example, has a Potato of the Year award.
Dubovoy, being a lifelong fan of the humble potato, needed no such convincing. Indeed, the potato is a star vegetable, eminently capable of feeding large populations and highly nutritious, that certainly does not deserve to be lumped in as a “bad carb”. It is, furthermore, integrally tied to a global history of European colonization of the Americas and subsequent proliferation of isolated varieties of New World crops into myriad global food cultures. The potato is also an unbelievably strange object aesthetically, somehow simultaneously devoid of features and yet incredibly anthropomorphic.
Over the course of 12 improvised miniatures on this EP, Dubovoy explores these various aesthetic and sociohistorical characteristics. The EP's recording process itself was an exploration of spontaneity and musical dialogue, of course, with the potato as a muse. The result is a collection of pieces that are at once whimsical and contemplative, challenging listeners to reconsider the qualities of the piano as an instrument and this humble root vegetable.
恋愛至上主義 / Love Supremacism and Don’t Hate the Potate are part of a double release, both recorded during the same chilly weekend in February 2024.
