Matt Choboter: Visceral Totems: Improvisations for Microtonal Prepared Piano

Conceived and executed as an extended aural narrative performed on a custom-built microtonal prepared piano, Matt Choboter's Visceral Totems: Improvisations for Microtonal Prepared Piano radiates an orchestral  air from its very inception via "Prologue." 

Intentional or not, the tones recall those of a child's music box, the plucked nature of which complements those bell-like timbres that ensue within "Visceral Sketch part II," immediately commencing in the wake of the former's less than three-minute duration.

With the total of eight 'Visceral Sketches" thus building upon each other with the progression to the denouement, an increasingly prominent rhythm begins to proliferate. As a result, Matt Choboter's playing takes on a readily discernible childlike air, so that, while there is a certain sameness to the tracks, the familiar quality is one of consistency and continuity rather than lack of ideas. 

The third cut is very much a variation on a theme. Atonal clusters emerge from the previously stated styles, thereby extending the growth of what's preceded. Hearing this album is thus very much like the audio equivalent of watching crystals grow in elapsed time, inexorably, progressively solidifying in layers 

Lest that notion sound impenetrable, a certain gaiety emerges via the "Visceral Sketch part IV." Brighter tones resembling tuneful steel pans dominate the piece and then, seemingly as a purposeful extension of a blended motif, cascading strings float to the surface on the very next track; variations on similar forms blossom over the course of this selection, the longest of all except the conclusion.

Danish-based and Canadian-born Choboter performed all of Visceral Totems, but enlisted astute assistance in the production of recordings. Captured by the artist himself at the Krokodile Collective in Copenhagen, mixing by Simon Mariegaard and mastering by Sam Nacht preserved the nuances of impeccable sonics. 

Such subtle adjustments of the meticulously-prepared instrument permeate the technical aspects here as much as the playing. Nevertheless, there is no sense of a clinician's sterility or the antiseptic patina of self-indulgent technique on any front. Rather, Choboter's (re-) discovery of his approach from, to name just one, Postcards Of Nostalgia (ILK Records, 2023), lends a palpable human touch to Visceral Totems. 

As a result, in the eight-plus minutes of the finale, the threads weaving in and out, then through the preceding tracks, become tied together. The spontaneous musicianship is every bit as meticulous in its own way as the foundational mechanics of the piano and the devices in use to capture and preserve the action for posterity.

Spirit of the moment interludes morph into formal structure, highlighting how apropos is this album title. Purely cerebral this music is not. In fact, partly through repetition distinct from much of what preceded it, this culmination of the roughly forty-one minutes is an altogether intricate recapitulation of the very thought processes by which Matt Choboter imagined, then coaxed his ideas to fruition.