John Blum: Who Begat Eye

This set of solo pieces was recorded in a single day's session on the 22nd of June 2008. Its tune titles are lifted from "Lineage," the Ted Hughes poem. It's intensified. It's condensed. It's compacted. It's impacted. It's unavoidable to invoke the name of Cecil Taylor as a stylistic precedent. Or maybe Don Pullen. Blum plays with such forcefulness and rapidity that these short-ish outbursts sound like Conlon Nancarrow's player piano rolls, interpreted via human hands, freed up into a liquid state.

Blum is darker than Taylor, exploring a deeper timbre. He makes slashing strokes across the keyboard, laterally pile-driving, adopting different speeds, clusters and event-groupings. He really sounds like he's released his mind from all conventionally governing principles. His fast detail is delivered with a manic attack. Showers, sprays, mini-tantrums. He possesses high control and a vast lexicon. The sequence of improvisations sounds like some bastardized classical recital. Blum is truly a virtuoso percussionist. He sounds as though he's realizing structures in his head, as if in narrative overdrive, keying in tongues.

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