Reinier Van Houdt, Michael Pisaro

Field Recordings from Syros, Greece and Southern California in 2015 and 2017. Piano performed by Reinier van Houdt, recorded in The Wild Beast, CalArts, June 2015Inside image by Michael Pisaro / Thanks to Keith Rowe.

The sounds come and go against a backdrop of silence and stillness; the silences aren’t long but there’s a definite sense of a canvas only partially filled. Frequently, sounds are allowed to reverberate and decay into nothingness. It’s perhaps this quality that most communicates a sense of “piano” in the absence of obvious piano playing. Pisaro uses the piano recordings to impart a sense of natural reverb and the slow decay of notes to electronic sounds and tones. Only in the last few minutes does the piano return overtly, repeating the dense clusters heard on “Event Storm,” with the thickets of sound here almost entirely overwhelming the delicate sine tones winding underneath. This is yet another complex, beautiful work from Pisaro" (taken from Reddy Brown Objects review)