Isotopes, by Tom Schneider

Isotopes

by Tom Schneider

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Alluvium, EK001: Expanse, Mare Monstrum, Acustica, Stay, Temporary Home, Isotopes, Furnace, In Aggregate / Carob, and 72 more. , and , .
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1.	Jagged 05:39	buy track
2.	Chalk 05:36	buy track
3.	Overlaps 01:18	buy track
4.	Freeze 02:33	buy track
5.	Serpentines 04:49	buy track
6.	Isotopes 01:04	buy track
7.	Brash 02:21	buy track
8.	Pending 03:14	buy track
9.	Absence 02:37	buy track
10.	Diffraction 04:07	buy track
11.	Particular Interest 01:46	buy track
12.	Speculation 02:24	buy track

about

MACRO M72

Insight Piano: Within just a few years Tom Schneider moved the scope of the sampler as an instrument into entirely unexpected zones of expression. On keys with pioneering cut-up pop band KUF he developed a key-triggered vocal style with no singers on stage at all. With trio LOOM & THREAD he devised a new wave of digital improv in which the sampler amplified the piano and engaged the acoustic musicians in some sort of multidimensional musical chess.

Now, 'ISOTOPES' is Schneider's 1st solo album and witnesses him being an astonishingly sensitive and imaginative pianist too. The album's material was developed and recorded in an intimate session at Bauer Studios of Ludwigsburg – a site laden with the history of some of the most significant recordings of contemporary jazz. Yet things don't stop at bringing just another piano solo effort.

Schneider's approaches to the instrument, which range from tender hesitance to eruptive, clustered attacks, merely set the starting point. These utterances are sampled and mirrored back, ultimately rendering a unified performance which combines the depth of intricately executed composition with the urgent immediacy of free improvisation.

Over the past decade we have witnessed a resurgence of apparently opposed trends: repetitive, minimalistic sensitivity and dashing, complex virtuosity. The linear thinking that defines these approaches as polar opposites turns out to be entirely useless when facing 'Isotopes.' Both, the uninhibited speed of granular clouds of tones and the dense texture of multiple layered phrases fired off all at once, require a complete reconceptualisation of the meaning of complexity in music. Yet Schneider offers less of a tongue in cheek critique of the pretense usually inherent in virtuosic display – instead, the playing field is being thoroughly leveled: Now, and really for the first time, a singular tone potentially carries exactly as much weight as the peaks of physiological sophistication.

This is not at all what the axe-wielding avant-gardes of the past were after. What we are witnessing here is a thorough de-ideologisation of the instrument: Neither traditions need to be shattered nor innovation kept at the gates. In a world of zero-sum thinking (‘if you get to eat I must go hungry’), here we find an integrative approach that shows that we can indeed lift up without simultaneously pulling down.

"Complete sonic fiction" Bad Alchemy Magazine (DE)

credits

released June 23, 2023

Tom Schneider – piano, sampler, granular synthesis
Recorded by Johannes Kellig at Bauer Studios, Ludwigsburg
Mastered by Stefan Goldmann
Cover: Kira Leskinen – Eleimo, 2022
Design by Viet Hoa Le.

2 times nominee, Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik award.

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about

Macro Berlin, Germany

Founded in 2007 by Stefan Goldmann and Finn Johannsen.

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