Bright Codes

Album review

Pianist Jacob Greenberg is a longtime member of the International Contemporary Ensemble and released his solo debut album, Bright Codes, on its in-house Tundra label. All of the pieces here were written for him. Only two of the seven works included, one of them the title work by Dai Fujikura, are for a conventional solo piano; Nathan Davis' Ghostlight is for a "lightly prepared" piano. On the rest of the pieces, Greenberg plays an instrument that may well be unique in the annals of avant-garde music: a harmonium. This is stripped of its folk overtones (and its Indian origins) and placed in the role of an intermediary between the acoustic piano and the electronics that appear in several pieces. In IONE's The Memory of Now, the harmonium interacts with stochastic "sonic vocals," while in Amy Williams' Fünf Worte for harmonium and voice, it plays a more conventional keyboard role. In Davis' Seedling, the harmonium becomes a kind of acoustic-electronic instrument with haunting effect. The overall effect is of an experimental but wide-ranging attempt to extend the sonic realms of keyboard music, and while the album is clearly not for those lacking sympathy for avant-garde music, it will intrigue most others.
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