Erez Dessel – Non Define Roar

In my never ending quest to find fearless music that hasn’t grown soft and conventional with jazz department comportment and scene assimilation I have a deep tendency to lurk deep on the IG pages of people whose names I don’t recognize on the bills of people whose names I barely recognize. I want to know who’s twenty-one and shredding in Akron. Who’s in high school and the next Harry Partch in Tulsa? Who’s old as Methusaleh recording the breath of houseplants in Terre Haute? The best feeling is when you see someone with whom you share no mutual followers. The next best feeling is when you dig down and see/hear a piano transcription/play-a-long with a MIlford Grave solo from New York Art Quartet’s No. 6 and you realize IG can be Ancestry.com and you done found yourself a cousin.

Since becoming aware of him, Erez Dessel, has since moved from Georgia to Chicago and dutifully continued his role as organizer and now an in-demand collaborator in the ridiculously busy and full Chicago scene holding the piano chair in Ken Vandemark’s ridiculously burning Edition Redux which also features tightrope walker after a couple of beers drummer phenom Lily Finnegan who is slated for a later OCFC release. – Ben Hall, OCFC

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Having known Erez Dessel since the start of his years as a conservatory student, I’m not surprised that this recording of solo pieces is as bold, unique and creative as it is. Erez is as serious in his life as a creative artist as he was in his life as a student of piano, jazz and improvisation. I can verify that his understanding of those areas and his ability to play it all is on the highest level. That is due to his respect for, and deep knowledge of the material, its structure, methodologies, and expressive possibilities. His focus, seriousness and commitment to working hard to master all of it has led to this beautiful recording, which is one piece of what I expect will be a very elaborate, inventive and important body of work that unfolds over the course of his artistic life.

This recording of 61 solo pieces is an original work by an immensely talented young pianist. His program notes explain his process, but the music leaves open the possibility that we might interpret it in our own way. Go with it like I did and experience the unfolding of the logic and unpredictability of the sounds, expression and the beautiful sequence of events. I promise it will reveal new surprises with every track every time you hear it.

-Joe Morris

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NONE DEFINE ROAR
[recorded in Savannah, GA in 2021]

These 61 solo piano pieces were recorded at different lengths of time increasing by 1 second for each piece, meaning the first piece was recorded in 30 seconds, the next in 31 seconds, and so on, all the way up to 90 seconds. Then, using tape machine processing [all pieces were recorded on a Tascam Portastudio 424 MKII and processed through a Califone 5270 AV 10W], each piece was carefully speed-adjusted at the inverse of its length, with the 30 second piece being slowed down the most the tape machine would allow, and the tape speed increasing for each piece, with the 90 second piece being played at the fastest speed the tape machine allows. In this way, the listener is hearing time flutter the same way magnetic tape flutters and distorts during playback. The pieces that took the shortest amount of time to physically create are being heard as the longest amount of time for the listener, and vice versa.

-Erez Dessel