Name: The Piano Equation
Brand: Matthew Shipp

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

TAO01

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Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2020-05-22

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Proper

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

642623800126

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Total Cap

1 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Matthew Shipp

Genre GB

Jazz

Label GB

American pianist, Matthew Shipp, was born on December 7th, 1960 in Wilmington, Delaware. With a passion for music from an early age, he began playing the piano at just six years old. Shipp honed his skills at the New England Conservatory of Music under esteemed mentors and cites their influence as formative to his career. In 1984, he made the move to New York City to launch his music career.

Shipp's talent as a bandleader became evident when he recorded his first album in 1988 alongside *a309661*. While primarily known for his work in free jazz, Shipp has also ventured into classical and hip-hop genres throughout his illustrious career.

His unique style and versatility have drawn comparisons to other notable artists such as *Roscoe Mitchell*, *Wadada Leo Smith*, and *Anthony Braxton*. With a discography that spans various collaborations and solo projects, Matthew Shipp continues to captivate audiences with his innovative approach to music.

Further honing a singular cosmic musical language, Matthew Shipp begins celebrating his landmark 60th year with this solo piano recording. 'The Piano Equation' is also the inaugural release from Tao Forms, a new label founded by drummer-improviser-composer - and longtime Shipp collaborator - Whit Dickey.

Over more than half of his lifespan, Shipp has built up an unparalleled body of work and a wholly original musical language that only becomes more hyper-focused and distinctive with the passage of time. Shipp's abstract eloquence is on vivid display throughout 'The Piano Equation', which presents Shipp alone at the piano, brilliantly solving his higher-order musical mathematics, approaching each new unknown from unexpected vantage points as in some form of cubist algebra. Shipp builds his solo music in a cellular fashion, formed like the building blocks of human life out of disparate elements that combine and evolve in novel and fascinating forms. 

Eruptive Cecil Taylor clusters are mutated by the interstellar rays of Sun Ra's philosophising, then spiral earthward in taut, obsessive figures. Stride, swing and the avant-garde collide like so many elemental particles, the aftereffects radiating outward in increasingly complex and intricate formations. The scientific, the personal, the political and the fantastic co-exist throughout Shipp's work, melding in the radical vocabulary that the pianist employs on the album, which speaks with its own alien yet familiar logic. Fragments of melody coalesce and transform, dissolve or shatter into kaleidoscopic reveries.

While some may have used the arrival of such a landmark occasion as their 60th birthday to look backwards, Shipp will spend the year continuing to move resolutely forward, further evolving a voice that is as intimately personal as it is cosmically adventurous.

The Piano Equation

Music GB