MP3 Bruce Novack - Multiplicity: Solo Piano Improvisations and Constructions

An "almost physical need to surprise myself rhythmically, to crunch into the spaces between the spaces." Also a tape piece constructed from a number of Novack's solos playing simultaneouslyâa "wall" of sound, yet delineated, exhilarating, and fascinating.

12 MP3 Songs in this album (63:51) !
Related styles: AVANT GARDE: Free Improvisation, JAZZ: Avant-Garde Jazz

People who are interested in Cecil Taylor Morton Feldman Ornette Coleman should consider this download.


Details:
ââ¦an intense, mercurial, rhythmically explosive musicâ¦his right hand [was] making an impossibly rapid run over the keyboard, while his left hand was moving in a different direction and at a different tempo to form a different kind of figuration.â
--Jonathan Cott, Elle

"If music is to last, it has to go deeper than the notes. Bruce Novack's does."
--Nat Hentoff


NEW REVIEW by Rigobert Dittmann in the German magazine Bad Alchemy:
Bruce Novack, MULTIPLICITY
(Crevice Records, Crevice 17): Although he has his expert admirers, Novack remains a treasured secret.... Novack is a solo piano improviser...after hearing the first sequences of squirted-about notes, my ears perked up. Here is someone who plays outside the system, following his own rules, which makes it hard to compare. Quick and sharp fragments and edgy cascades collide with something carefully incubated in 'Impulse' or something introspective in 'Interior.' The titles âQuarryâ and âStoneâ indicate that here is someone who extricates his forms with hammer and chisel. But less so with the urge for freedom and exuberance of a Berlin Wall woodpecker, rather with the fine sense for the veins in marble. Then âMonts Mandaraâ listens again to the innermostâthe introspective gaze focuses on a volcanic mountain range in northern Cameroon. âIn Between Edgesâ alternates between crystalline effervescence and melancholic echoes of individual notes and atmospheric voids. The central piece, certainly, is the 21-minute âQuantum Wall,â a multi-track monster, where Novack piles pianos on top of each other forming a monument to Conlon Nancarrow. Like a gigantic fountain, clusters of notes are cascading, myriads of sounds ranging from dull-dark to mercurial-light. The finale is like an echo of that, a molecular eruption of a completely liquefied piano. Finger Paintings (Crevice 13) demonstrated that Novack is not an entirely new apparition. Already in 1988 his fingers were racing like a centipede across the zebra crossing of the piano, already then Novack contrasted denseness and richness a la Cecil Taylorâalmost a grotesque overabundanceâwith transparent moments under Saturnian sign. A calf with two heads and at least four hands, smiled upon by only one moon. And by me.


âEntirely unpredictable, Novack draws the listenerâs attention with a demanding, energetic performance, collapsing time frames and tonality into dramatic patterns of activity and reflection. Novack leaves behind the usual limits of musicality with these abstract forms, rarely even hinting of other musical influences or reference points.â
--Option

â[Novackâs] improvisations are shaped around his conception of time, which he telescopes, compresses, and distorts at the keyboard, twisting a space filled with notes and clusters of notes that take on the characteristics of solid objects. Patterns and phrases form, roll or drift past, and vanish, often to reappear in contexts more ominous, playful, or bewildering than before.â â-The Village Voice

âNovack has carved out a vital niche for himself in improvised music⦠Like the elucidations of the most insightful artists, Novackâs demand repeated exposures for additional rewards.â
--Cadence

âa kind of Nancarrow-played-by-human-hands effect.â --Option

âNovackâs commitment to his vision is inspiring.â â-Keyboard