Mutations

2014 release from the Jazz pianist. Mutations is Vijay Iyers first album as a leader for ECM, and a recording that will widen perceptions of the composers work. At its center is Mutations I-X, a composition scored for string quartet, piano, and electronics. A major piece built out of cells and fragments, it veers through many atmospheres, from moment to moment propulsive, enveloping, lyrical, luminescent, and strangely beautiful. Through thematic interactivity, the interweaving of acoustic and electronic sound-textures, and some decisive improvisational interventions in notated music, Vijay Iyer has created a multi-faceted suite whose very subject is change. Iyer gives a positive value to the concept of mutation in this music, and variously appears in it as an interpreter of notated elements, as an improviser, and as a sort of laptop artist, mixing in noise and different sounds, encouraging the transformative processes.