Norwegian composer-pianist-electronics player Kjetil Husebø keeps developing his unique sonic vision of blending, almost uniting the acoustic grand piano with live sampling and live electronics. «Piano Transformed» continues Husebø work on his previous albums, «Contradictions» and «Sources» (2012, 2013, both on Optical Substance Productions), where he began introducing live sampling and live electronics on several pieces.

On «Piano Transformed the live sampling and live electronics are already an integral and organic elements of Husebø language, suggesting a highly personal and an intimate symbiosis of the live acoustic playing with real-time processing, editing and expanding the piano sonic palette. Often, this method of focused, patient improvising that turns into a process of composing, and vice versa, enables «Piano Transformed to sound as a multifaceted, work in progress. This album sounds as a work that asks more questions than providing comforting answers; a sonic installation that never settles in a distinct, conventional sonic terrain but always offering new listening experiences, much like the recent ambient works of Brian Eno.

The nine new pieces suggest spacey, contemplative and reserved atmospheres that leaves enough room to reflect about the sound of the piano and sound at all , senses of time, tension and space, dynamics and form. Still, all radiate a disturbing yet sobering feeling of how all is transient. These kind of broken melodies are contrasted and intersected arbitrarily by alien sounds, fragmented into weird forms of pulse and textures, forced to keep morphing and changing. The serene title piece, the provocative and nervous «Was Ligeti an Astronaut?» and the fragile and touching «Lust» captures best Husebø daring sonic vision.

Eyal Hareuveni

Kjetil Husebø (C. Bechstein grand piano, live samp, live elec)