Mutations

Vijay Iyer

EN / DE

Mutations is Vijay Iyer’s first album as a leader for ECM, and a recording that will widen perceptions of the pianist-composer’s work. At its centre is “Mutations I-X”, a composition scored for string quartet, piano, and electronics. A major piece built out of cells and fragments, it veers through many atmospheres, from moment to moment propulsive, enveloping, lyrical, luminescent, and strangely beautiful. Through thematic interactivity, the interweaving of acoustic and electronic sound-textures, and some decisive improvisational interventions in notated music, Vijay Iyer has created a multi-faceted suite whose very subject is change. Iyer gives a positive value to the concept of ‘mutation’ in this music, and variously appears in it as an interpreter of notated elements, as an improviser, and as “a sort of laptop artist, mixing in noise and different sounds,” encouraging the transformative processes: The suite is framed by three solo statements: "Spellbound and Sacrosanct, Cowrie Shells and the Shimmering Sea”, a solo piano reading of one of Iyer’s early compositions, and “Vuln, Part 2" and "When We’re Gone", pieces created in summer 2013. The newer compositions put the piano in counterpoint with electronically generated rhythms and textures which extend the aura of the suite, making the arc of the whole album a journey over changing terrain.

„Mutations” ist Vijay Iyers erstes Album für ECM – eine Aufnahme, die die Wahrnehmung der kompositorischen Arbeit des Pianisten erheblich erweitern wird. Im Zentrum steht hier mit „Mutations I- X“, eine für Streichquartett, Klavier und Elektronik eingerichtete Komposition. Ein aus verschiedenen Zellen und Fragmenten bestehendes Stück in großem Format, das durch viele unterschiedliche Stimmungen mäandert, von einem Moment auf den nächsten mal vorwärts drängend, dann wieder lyrisch und leuchtend, und so eine eigenartige Schönheit entwickelt.
Durch die Interaktivität der Themen, das Ineinandergreifen akustischer und elektronischer Soundtexturen und entschiedene improvisatorische Eingriffe in die notierte Musik hat Vijay Iyer eine facettenreiche Suite geschaffen, deren eigentliches Thema der Wandel ist. Iyer misst dem Konzept der ‚Mutationen’ in dieser Musik einen besonderen Wert bei und tritt in ihr mal als Interpret  notierter Elemente auf , mal als Improvisator und dann wieder als „eine Art Laptop-Künstler, der Lärm und andere Geräusche einmischt“ – und ermutigt so die transformativen Prozesse.
Die Suite wird von drei Solo-Statements eingerahmt: "Spellbound and Sacrosanct, Cowrie Shells and the Shimmering Sea" ist die Solofassung einer frühen Iyer-Komposition,”Vuln, Part2“ und „When We’re Gone“ wiederum sind Stücke, die im Sommer 2013 entstanden. Die neueren Stücke setzt der Pianist in kontrapunktische Bezüge mit elektronisch generierten Rhythmen und Texturen, die die Aura der Suite aufgreifen – wodurch der Spannungsbogen des gesamten Albums wie eine Reise über wechselndes Terrain erscheint.
Featured Artists Recorded

September 2013, Avatar Studios, New York

Original Release Date

28.02.2014

  • 1Spellbound and Sacrosanct, Cowrie Shells and the Shimmering Sea
    (Vijay Iyer)
    07:33
  • 2Vuln, Part 2
    (Vijay Iyer)
    04:33
  • 3Mutation I: Air
    (Vijay Iyer)
    04:13
  • 4Mutation II: Rise
    (Vijay Iyer)
    02:43
  • 5Mutation III: Canon
    (Vijay Iyer)
    05:48
  • 6Mutation IV: Chain
    (Vijay Iyer)
    05:25
  • 7Mutation V: Automata
    (Vijay Iyer)
    06:31
  • 8Mutation VI: Waves
    (Vijay Iyer)
    03:00
  • 9Mutation VII: Kernel
    (Vijay Iyer)
    05:59
  • 10Mutation VIII: Clade
    (Vijay Iyer)
    01:34
  • 11Mutation IX: Descent
    (Vijay Iyer)
    05:16
  • 12Mutation X: Time
    (Vijay Iyer)
    03:58
  • 13When We're Gone
    (Vijay Iyer)
    03:27
Mutations is Vijay Iyer’s first album as a leader for ECM, and a recording that will widen perceptions of the pianist-composer’s work. At its centre is “Mutations I-X”, a composition scored for string quartet, piano, and electronics. A major piece built out of cells and fragments, it veers through many atmospheres, from moment to moment propulsive, enveloping, lyrical, luminescent, and strangely beautiful. Through thematic interactivity, the interweaving of acoustic and electronic sound-textures, and some decisive improvisational interventions in notated music, Vijay Iyer has created a multi-faceted suite whose very subject is change. Iyer gives a positive value to the concept of ‘mutation’ in this music, and variously appears in it as an interpreter of notated elements, as an improviser, and as “a sort of laptop artist, mixing in noise and different sounds,” encouraging the transformative processes:

“A mutation process drives each of the suite’s ten episodes,” Iyer explains in the liner notes. “In some sections, minute variations or fluctuations in a recurring figure ultimately elicit a structural transformation; in other movements, real-time acts governed by competing directives yield an emergent, spontaneous order. These ten coexisting entities are linked either genetically or by a kind of symbiosis.”

The suite is framed by three solo statements: "Spellbound and Sacrosanct, Cowrie Shells and the Shimmering Sea”, a solo piano reading of one of Iyer’s early compositions, and “Vuln, Part 2" and "When We're Gone", pieces created in summer 2013. The newer compositions put the piano in counterpoint with electronically generated rhythms and textures which extend the aura of the suite. The arc of the whole album is a journey over changing terrain.

Mutations was recorded at New York’s Avatar Studio in September 2013, with Manfred Eicher as producer, and casts new light on Iyer’s creative range. In recent seasons Vijay’s personal approach to jazz and improvising has resonated with both press and the public, and multiple poll wins and awards including, most recently, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, have raised his international profile. Yet important aspects of his work have remained undocumented on disc. Over the last ten years Iyer has written music for chamber ensembles of various formations, much of which “involves different approaches to improvisation as well as notation. I’m happy to have this chance to let it be heard alongside other work I have been doing that’s more in a jazz vein, or more connected to the jazz community.”

For Iyer working with ‘classical’ instrumentation is less a departure than a continuation. “I studied violin for 15 years and played in string quartets and orchestras. The sound of the string quartet has been in my head for as long as I can remember. Some of ‘Mutations I-X’ was written on violin, some of it on piano, some of it on the computer.” I also wanted to put a certain amount of agency in the musician’s hands to get them feeling like they could stir things at times and contribute something to the musical landscape. Basically to help them to feel like it was theirs as much as it was mine.” A key question here and in other works of Iyer’s: “How do you set people free inside the form that you’ve created?”
 
“Mutations I-X” was written and premiered in 2005 and has been rebuilt and effectively revised with each subsequent performance, by “working with the same notated elements but pushing the real time element more and more.” At Avatar the musicians “had a kind of a breakthrough, particularly apparent in ‘Movement VII’, which itself is a kind of sculpted, open improvisation. The string players are given a set of instructions and what I call a gesture palette, a palette of notated material that they can draw from spontaneously. They can dip into and grab a fragment of it and interpret it. So, what I decided to do in these final moments when I was with them in the studio was to do a take where – instead of using that one page of notation – I used the entire piece as a sort of palette. All the material that they had been playing constantly for that period was now in their heads and in their bodies and they could express it in different ways, incorporate it into the active listening, and build something with it. It was great to hear and experience that, because it became something new that I didn’t even foresee.”
YEAR DATE VENUE LOCATION
2024 November 03 SF Jazz San Francisco CA, United States
2024 November 16 Kennedy Center Washington DC, United States
2024 November 24 tba Rockport MA, United States