Sebastian Lexer

dazwischen (German for in between) is a solo record by Sebastian Lexer on piano+. This is a grand piano extended by special microphones and Max/MSP software of his own, which analyse, process and transform its sound in real time. The processing never displaces the piano itself. Six pieces, from five to fourteen minutes long, explore the space between the acoustic instrument and its electronic extension. They also play on the gap between what the player intends and what the system does by itself.

Lexer, a recording engineer, programmer and lecturer who was then working on a PhD in performance practice at Goldsmiths, recorded the pieces at the university's Electronic Music Studios on 16 November 2008. He also plays regularly with saxophonist Seymour Wright. Reviewing the disc for JazzWord in 2010, Ken Waxman heard granulated pitches and ring-modulated signals that never push the music into explicit electronica, so that "the piano's true properties are never in doubt". On Abscissa and Ordinate processed oscillations give way to slow bass pedal thumps and steady chords, and on Defining Edges low, clanking keys and clashing timbres form an interlude of their own. In The Wire the record was heard as the whole piano mechanism opened up to chance, "a true ghost box". In his booklet note John Tilbury sets aside the gloomy forecast for the piano in Samuel Beckett's Watt. In Lexer's hands, he writes, good music is being made.

Released by Matchless Recordings in 2009 as MRCD 74 on CD, in a gatefold card cover with an eight-page booklet and notes by Eddie Prévost, Ian Stonehouse and Tilbury. Lexer did the programming, recording and mastering himself.