Music For Detuned Pianos

Description

Max de Wardener returns to Village Green with an album of detuned acoustic piano pieces, performed by British jazz pianist Kit Downes (ECM). Drawing inspiration from modernist composers James Tenney, Harry Partch and La Monte Young, de Wardeners intentions here were to try and bend something established and monumental into something new. The resulting album is deceptively simple, belying the projects myriad technical challenges (pianos are immensely stubborn when subject to unorthodox tuning methods). Captured over a two-year period, Downes enlivening improvisations do justice to de Wardeners vision in creating an elegant record that feels at once familiar, yet otherworldly.