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Matthew Shipp: The Piano Equation
In celebration of his sixtieth birthday in 2020, Shipp—always pushing his artistry forward—plans to offer up (at least) two albums. The first is Piano Equation, a solo outing which finds the artist expanding and, at the same time, focusing his vision, sounding, as always, as if he is delving into cosmic mysteries, painting sharp-angled auditory geometrics like a keyboard Picasso.
Percussive, often prickly angularity abounds; at times he seems to summon roiling thunderclouds. The title tune starts the disc with a quirky pensiveness, a fervid and unflinchingly exploratory rumination—on what is anybody's guess, some dark, algebraic seach for the melodic X factor perhaps. "Swing Note From Deep Space" finds Shipp channeling Sun Ra—in spirit if not in sound—as he pulls in ominous star-fueled sonic emissions out of the black void.
Shipp has been compared to Thelonious Monk. The percussive cragginess is there, but Monk wrote about seventy tunes and worked constant re-vistitations of them. Shipp is an inveterate explorer, constantly discovering new concepts: the funhouse mirror playfulness of "Clown Pulse," or the ominous murk that gives way to the tolling of the bell on "Cosmic Juice," the tune that closes out a particularly fine solo outing from Matthew Shipp.
Track Listing
Piano Equation; Swing Note from Deep Space; Piano In Hyperspace; Vortex Factor; Land of the Secrets; Void Equation; Tone Pocket; Clown Pulse; Radio Signals Equation; Emission; Cosmic Juice.
Personnel
Matthew Shipp
pianoAlbum information
Title: The Piano Equation | Year Released: 2020 | Record Label: Tao Forms
About Matthew Shipp
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