My review of Vijay Iyer'a groundbreaking ECM debut, Mutations, today at All About Jazz
There are times when it's possible to chart an artist's success through his association with record labels. Vijay Iyer—who, over the past 20 years, has built a reputation for genre-defying, forward-reaching music—spent the early part of his career on independent US labels including the highly regarded Pi Recordings, Savoy Jazz and Sunnyside Records. But it was with his move to Germany's ACT label and a series of trio and solo recordings, including the Grammy-nominated Historicity (2009), that the pianist began to garner even more attention. Still, as good as his four ACT recordings were, looking at the label's overall purview it's no surprise to find him relocating elsewhere in the same city of Munich, to the more highly esteemed ECM Records. Simply put, Mutations is a recording that Iyer could never have released on ACT, and it's that very freedom to explore less-traveled terrain—and the opportunity to work with an active producer in Manfred Eicher and his acute attention to sonic translucence—that makes this, hopefully, the beginning of a long and creatively fecund relationship.
On the strength of Mutations, it's clear that Iyer's relationship with Eicher is already bearing significant fruit. Focusing more on composition—though improvisation is by no means far away—at Mutation's core is the ten-part, 45-minute title suite, a dark, otherworldly piece of music for piano, string quartet and electronics. The suite is bookended by three pieces for solo piano and, in some cases, electronics: the crepuscular opener, "Spellbound and Sacrosanct, Cowrie Shells and the Shimmering Sea"—first heard on the pianist's 1995 Asian Improv Records debut, Memorophilia—is revamped from its original trio format into a solo vehicle, intrinsically providing Iyer more room for self-expression, especially when it comes to time; "Vuln, Pt 2" follows and, with the introduction of electronics that provide shimmering color and a subtle pulse, acts as a perfect segue into the Mutations suite; the closing "When We're Gone," with Iyer's sparely delivered abstrusities and subtle, panning electronic chimes, is the perfect coda to an hour-long journey through terrain defined by melodic cells or kernels and the manner in which subtle shifts—sometimes planned, other times a function of in-the-moment decision making when it comes to how and when to incorporate them—cause the very mutations that give the suite its title.
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