One would hope that the profile of the pianist and composer Duval Timothy might rise exponentially after his high-profile production work on Kendrick Lamar’s Mr Morale & the Big Steppers. This former art student – who dresses only in blue (in fealty to the signage in his home borough of Lewisham), co-wrote a cookbook of African recipes and currently lives between London and Freetown, Sierra Leone – has been making consistently excellent music for a long time. His quizzical piano miniatures have been sampled by Loyle Carner, Solange and Mount Kimbie; he has collaborated with the likes of David Okumu and Rosie Lowe; and his new album, Meeting With a Judas Tree, is accompanied by a short film which shows at the ICA, London, this weekend.
Judas Tree takes Timothy’s meditative piano solos and mutilates them using effects pedals, wonky synths and field recordings, often with help from likeminded sound artists. On opening track Plunge, a whimsical piano sequence is overlaid with buzzing distortion to the point where it starts to resemble a Jesus & Mary Chain track. Wood, a ruminative piano duet with Chinese-Canadian sound artist Yu Su, is lavished with birdsong and squeaking sound effects until it positively sparkles. On the nine-minute epic Mutate, a synth wobbles over a cluster of jazzy piano chords and what sound like sighing guitars, which are gradually multi-tracked and distorted to create a disorientating babble of atonal voices. Thunder is a seven-and-a-half-minute collaboration with London musician Fauzia, where piano is placed through multiple FX chambers and resonant drones. Timothy’s brand of minimalism is simple but hugely satisfying: this disruptive approach introduces a new layer of mystery and randomness to already beautiful music.
Also out this month
Keyboard player Surya Botofasina grew up in a Californian ashram where he was mentored by the late, great Alice Coltrane, and her spirit positively flows through his new album, Everyone’s Children (Spiritmuse Records), produced by percussionist Carlos Niño. It switches between muted piano, glistening Fender Rhodes and wonky synth drones, with occasional vocal chants; Botofasina makes ecstatic modal jazz that cleverly disguises itself as chillout music.
Speculative Memories (SA Recordings) sees Yair Elazar Glotman using different voicings on each track – creaking, low-pitched strings, electronic drones, close-harmony singing, muted guitar, found sounds – to create a thoroughly immersive suite of slow-moving ambient soundscapes.