Italian, Brussels-based pianist-keyboard player Giovanni Di Domenico and Dutch sound artist (and graphic designer) Rutger Zuydervelt (aka Machinefabriek) played together a short, live free improvisation in 2019. In 2022, Di Domenico joined the chamber quartet Hydra (in which Zuydervelt played electronics) on stage.
Di Domenico and Zuydervelt’s debut duo album Painting a Picture / Picture a painting features two extended pieces corresponding to each other. Di Domenico played the piano and the Fender Rhodes live on the first piece, «Painting a Picture», with no overdubs, and asked Zuydervelt to add electronics and process his sounds. This is a minimalist, atmospheric-ambient piece in which Zuydervelt’s subtle electronics and nuanced processing inject a dream-like, contemplative dimension. Zuydervelt’s «Picture a Painting» has its foundation in the manipulated sounds of «Painting a Picture», and later Di Domenico played over his own manipulated and processed sounds. It soars into deeper and darker ambient space, with Di Domenico’s sparse and minimalist, lyrical piano touches, slowly gaining more substance.
These two meandering pieces act like two sides of the same coin and complement each other. The cover artwork of Dutch visual artist Christiaan Kuitwaard solidifies the corresponding essence of this album.
The double album Edge Runner / Noema features two minimalist solo works of Di Domenico and Swedish pianist Alex Zethson (of Mats Gustafsson’s Fire! Orchestra and the head of the Thanatosis Produktion label), both corresponding with each other but in a completely different manner.
Di Domenico’s Edge Runner was recorded at Concertgebouw Brugge and Zaal Miry Gent in January & April 2023, with Di Domenico improvising on grand piano, Hohner organetta, pipe organ, and electronics. The three distinct, stubborn, and dramatic yet carefully-layered, resonant drone pieces investigate intriguing repetitive motifs and timbres as the basis of these dark atmospheres.
Zethson’s Noema is a 44-minute solo piano piece that was recorded live in concert at Dudu Loft in Athens in October 2024. It is a spontaneous improvisation that gravitates toward instant, four-part compositions as it explores the organic but stubborn, slow-evolving transformation of repetitive, minimalist-hypnotic rhythmic motifs, from the ritualist-meditative to the melodic and lyrical. Zethson’s playing echoes at times the meditative, spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane, the hypnotic explorations of American pioneer minimalist composer Charlemagne Palestine, and even the rhythmic intensity of Swedish prog-metal band Meshuggah, but he choreographs in his own commanding manner this impressive improvisation.
Eyal Hareuveni
Giovanni Di Domenico (grand piano, Fender Rhodes, Hohner organetta, pipe organ, electronic), Rutger Zuydervelt (electronics, processing), Alex Zethson (grand piano)
