Mitchell, Matt - Fiction
SKU
28-Pi 50
The debut recording as leader by this amazingly great pianist with huge abilities and wide-ranging interest (who else has been a member of Thinking Plague, Claudia Quintet and Tim Berne's Snakeoil? Hmmm? This is a duo album featuring Matt and Ches Smith.
"His piano creates the space it lives in; he s a master of evaporating tones, and every chord he plays is broken crystal sharp and translucent."-Giovanni Russonello, Capital Bop
"A pianist of classical touch and methodical temperament, he fell in with coolly instigative composer-improvisers like John Hollenbeck and Tim Berne, his reputation accruing as a byproduct of his work ethic."-New York Times
"The music on Fiction completely re-imagines the notion of piano jazz. Mitchell originally conceived each piece as an etude that tested the technical limits of his pianistic abilities. Packed with wild gyrations of rhythm and counterpoint, the pieces on Fiction are like some warped amalgam of Thelonious Monk, Chopin, and Autechre. Accompanying Mitchell is drummer Ches Smith (Mr. Bungle, Marc Ribot s Ceramic Dog, Secret Chiefs 3), who brings a punk and indie-rock aesthetic. The music pushes and pulls against form, a perpetual motion machine of variations on a theme, but with hiccups. Seeming not wholly of this world, Fiction is a figment of Mitchell s febrile imagination and another outpost in the possibilities of jazz improvisation."