Exposé Online banner

Exposé Online

Not just outside the box, but denying the existence of boxes.
Covering music from the fringes since 1993.

Reviews

Stephen Grew — Now We Are Here
(Discus Music 174CD, 2024, CD)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2024-09-07

Now We Are Here Cover art

Grew is a British improvising pianist who has worked solo, in groups (duos, trios, quartets), and in collaboration with others for over four decades. He has collaborated and recorded with some of the best, including Evan Parker, Keith Tippett, Graham Clark, and Howard Riley. Now We Are Here presents six pieces of his solo work over approximately ten years of development on one particular piano (Kawai model 2A) that resides at Lancaster Baptist Church in the north of England, and the unique challenges it presented to Grew, its action being particularly unyielding. The pieces here vary from shorter vignettes of around two minutes to longer expansive pieces — one almost 22 minutes and two others that approach the fourteen minute mark. Right out of the gate we have one of the latter, the title track, that skips around joyously in rapid-fire sequences that are tied together with only slightly softer passages as the piece bends, shifts, and twists at will like leaves blowing in a gale force wind, sharing a rainbow of colors as it proceeds. “Raw Energy, High Charge” certainly lives up to its title, beginning right where the title track leaves off, with another whirlwind of beautiful tones and emotions scattering in all directions, Grew’s mastery of this particular instrument is in full evidence here as the piece approaches its near fourteen-minute conclusion. Next  we encounter a couple of shorter pieces “Again 1” and “Not So Again 2” that together last only around four minutes total; a piece of brief gentle phrases opens up to another of soothing abstractions. The epic length piece here is “Passion in the Keys - The Miracle of Mechanical Ingenuity!” that seems to meander and circle around with a constant blossoming of brilliant ideas as it proceeds. The set closes much like it began, with “Secret Worlds” guiding the listener through several cycles of invention. Fans of creative piano improvisation would do well to check this one out.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Stephen Grew

More info
http://discusmusic.bandcamp.com/album/now-we-are-here-174cd-2024

 

What's new

These are the most recent changes made to artists, releases, and articles.