Bill Wells and Stefan Schneider – Pianotapes (Karaoke Kalk)

3 stars
This second collaboration between Falkirk’s answer to Theolonius Monk and one third of German electronicists to Rococo Rot is a languid marriage between top of the range chamber piano sketches and low-end analog equipment. Recorded in the Dusseldorf show-room of Bechstein piano makers, Wells plays a series of contemplative scales which are recorded live on reel to reel by Schneider, then played back slowed-down or sped up, which Wells in turn responds to. The result of this fragile call and response, complete with assorted in situ creaks and clicks, is a quietly textured mood music falling somewhere between Eric Satie and Harold Budd in a deliciously impressionistic exploration.

The List, October 2010

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