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Johnny Richards & Dave King — The New Awkward
(False Door Records FDR001, 2025, CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2025-10-05

The New Awkward Cover art

On their very first album, The Dixie Dregs had a great fusion piece called “The Wages of Weirdness,” which really wasn’t that weird at all, just some great writing and playing. That title would have much better been reserved for the title of the album at hand, although The New Awkward is certainly awkward too. Just drums and piano… what could possibly be awkward about that? Johnny Richards is a UK pianist and composer, and Dave King is a US drummer (and member of jazz quartet The Bad Plus), working from opposite sides of the Atlantic ocean during the year of the pandemic, 2020, necessitating changing files instead of rehearsing and playing together. The ten pieces here all began with Richards composing something on piano, some using the piano explicitly as a percussion instrument, others with prepared piano, altering the instrument in various ways, sometimes bowing the strings, nothing was off limits. From there, the pieces went to King where he added drum and percussion parts, then back across the pond to Richards, where more piano parts would be added; most of the tracks here have around four layers of piano, sometimes going back to King for additional percussion. One can hear on some of the tracks where screws were added to the strings to provide additional textures, and other bizarre treatments (are those aluminum foil sheets over the strings on “Gene Heard Wrong”?). So what does it sound like? A couple things I am reminded of at times: Bill Bruford’s “Five Percent For Nothing” on Yes’ Fragile, and Frank Zappa’s synclavier album Jazz From Hell. Perhaps there are other influences that I’m unaware of: Richards cites Tim Berne, Hindemith and Schoenberg. It is most certainly experimental and quite interesting. Some pieces, like the closer “Climbing On Mirrors,” intentionally or unintentionally hint vaguely at a gamelan ensemble flavor. I probably couldn’t survive on a steady diet of this, but it’s worthy of a beginning to end listen, which can be done at the link below. 

Filed under: New releases, 2025 releases

Related artist(s): Johnny Richards, Dave King

More info
http://falsedoorrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-new-awkward-2

 

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