Pak Yan Lau, Lionel Malric

Dual piano meetings have a checkered  history in the improvised music world. Although innovators such as Satoko  Fujii and Keith  Tippett have experimented notably with the form, the instruments’ orientation towards harmony and away from abstraction have defeated others efforts. Two piano duos, one Belgian and one French, have found a way out of the conundrum by hewing to contrasts in keyboard preparation and musical direction. Pak Yan Lau and Lionel Malric met in June 2014, without any plans or specific goals other than to create music together. They put the two pianos (one 1/2 queue Erard 121 from 1903, and one from 1908), face to face, put some mikes in the right places, made the necessary preparations on the strings, and then this fabulous album ended up as the result. I guess the two of them realised that they had something of true musical value.

Bring together 2 grand pianos? What a funny idea! To make a duo of prepared pianos! The obviousness and simplicity of this duet was in the air. We seized it, the time of a week in the spring of 2014, without objective other than a meeting, ephemeral and confidential. We installed the pianos, we installed the microphones, it sounded ... and surprise, it sounds all on it's own! When replaying the recording, releasing an album seemed logical, essential.

"The amazing thing about the performance is its inherent lyricism and harmonic beauty, even if most of the times it's even hard to grasp that the sounds are produced by pianos, and then by how many. Despite its exploratory nature, the music's emotional power is direct and intense. It's a wonderful illustration of visionary music that leaves all concepts behind to go to a new place, as yet unheard. And that place is incredibly fascinating and attractive" FreeJazzBlog