MAN EATING TREE is the first solo album by Belgian, Oslo-based, classically-trained free jazz and free improvising pianist Jonas Cambien. He recently delved into Egyptian music with his new trio, The Handover, which combines ritual music from rural Egypt with modern improvisation, krautrock influences, and psychedelic shaabi.

MAN EATING TREE distills Cambien’s versatile musical experiments into the prepared grand piano and electric organ. It suggests minimalist, repetitive textures and oscillating rhythms that reference the pioneer minimalist composers Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass, as well as the contemporary composer György Ligeti.

Norwegian pianist Morten Qvenild recorded the album. Clearly, Qvenild’s Personal Piano album (Hubro, 2015), where he experimented with the HyPer(sonal) Piano, extending the acoustic piano’s sonic palette with electronics inside the grand piano, informed MAN EATING TREE.

The album offers four distinct pieces. The opening piece, «Tre», suggests a Glass-tinged, hypnotic, repetitive piano motif. «Árbol» intensifies the muscular polyrhythmic motif that sounds as if transforming techno music into acoustic, highly resonant beats. «Silverware Vibrating Inside Grand Piano» is the boldest piece here, employing the inside of the piano to sketch resonant, metallic, buzzing, and rumbling sounds, patiently gravitating into an enigmatic, otherworldly yet somehow playful texture. The last piece, «BOOM», with the Ace Tone organ and prepared piano, offers a psychedelic-spiritual, exotic melody à la Alice Coltrane’s meditative pieces.

American musicologist Tucker Wiedenkeller, who focuses on Middle-Eastern music, captured in his liner notes Cambien’s free spirit aesthetics: «music that will saturate the subconscious as much as the conscious mind».

Eyal Hareuveni 

Jonas Cambien (prepared piano, Ace Tone Top 5 combo organ)