We are only two short months into 2018, but it has already felt like EONS. It’s the same all over. From Wink, TX to Climax, PA, fresh-faced fledglings are reaching for the Gold Bond Medicated before taking mid-morning naps on the davenport in record numbers.
While this energy drag is disconcerting, remember it is still early yearly days. Not all is lost, and a musical jolt is just a couple of days away. Steps will be springing and hearts will be singing when piano pro Matthew Shipp ships not one, but TWO albums out THIS FRIDAY (a.k.a. February 23) through ESP Disk’!
Shipp’s lengthy career as one of the most innovative avant pianists has spanned 30 years and has provided free-music adventurers a ridiculously varied and complex catalog to hold near and dear. And in typical Shipp fashion, the two discs show two very different sides to this one-of-a-kind musician. Although it was sadly reported last year that Shipp would be stopping (or at least, severely decreasing) his recording schedule; he made it known that there were still a few future sides to be heard. ESP Disk’ will release Zero, a solo disc, and Sonic Fiction, a set from his Quartet, on Friday.
Those who love Shipp’s solo explorations will bask in Zero’s stubborn quest to conquer the next sound. As essential is the Quartet album Sonic Fiction, which features frequent foils Michael Bisio (bass) and Whit Dickey (drums) along with Shipp’s recent reed-man of choice Mat Walerian on alto sax and clarinets.
Hoof that gray lethargy to the curb and click here to order the CDs and DLs. The first 880 copies of Zero include a bonus CD containing “Zero: A Lecture on Nothingness,” a talk Shipp gave at NYC’s The Stone. Listen to Shipp’s Quartet doing “Lines of Energy” below. Land ho! (groan…)
Matthew Shipp: Zero tracklisting:
01. Zero
02. Abyss Before Zero
03. Pole After Zero
04. Piano Panels
05. Cosmic Sea
06. Zero Skip and a Jump
07. Zero Subtract from Jazz
08. Blue Equation
09. Pattern Emerge
10. Ghost Pattern
11. After Zero
Bonus CD: Zero: A Lecture on Nothingness
Matthew Shipp Quartet: Sonic Fiction tracklisting:
01. First Step
02. Blues Addition
03. The Station
04. Lines of Energy
05. Easy Flow
06. The Problem of Jazz
07. The Note
08. 3 by 4
09. Cell in the Brain
10. Sonic Fiction