Mutations

Mutations is Vijay Iyer's first album as a leader for ECM, and a recording that will widen perceptions of the pianist-composer's work. At its centre 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.

The Mutations suite is framed by three solo statements: Spellbound and Sacrosanct, Cowrie Shells and the Shimmering Sea, a solo piano reading of one of Iyer's early compositions, and Vuln, Part 2 and When We're Gone, pieces created in summer 2013. The newer compositions put the piano in counterpoint with electronically generated rhythms and textures which extend the aura of the suite, making the arc of the whole album a journey over changing terrain.

Vijay Iyer was born in Albany, New York. He studied mathematics and physics at Yale, and received an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in the cognitive science of music from the University of California, Berkeley. He has been on faculty at Manhattan School of Music, New York University, and the New School, and in January 2014 joined Harvard University as the first Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts. Iyer's many musical collaborators have included Steve Coleman, Wadada Leo Smith, Craig Taborn, Ambrose Akinmusire, John Zorn, DJ Spooky, and Talvin Singh. He first recorded for ECM in 2007, as a member of Roscoe Mitchell's Note Factory on the live album Far Side.

Personnel: Vijay Iyer (piano, electronics), Miranda Cuckson, Michi Wiancko (violins), Kyle Armbrust (viola), Kivie Cahn-Lipman (cello)