Vijay Iyer - solo Vijay Iyer

Following ‘Swedish Folk Modern’ (Landgren / Svensson), ‘Good Morning Midnight’ (Hülsmann/Cicero) and ‘Belle Époque’ (Peirani/ Parisien), ‘solo’ is the fourth entry in ACT’s ‘past is present’ series.

Vijay Iyer’s only solo piano album and a key milestone in his discography, originally released on ACT in 2010.

As with the previous past is present releases, this is a hand-numbered collector’s edition on 180g vinyl, with newly written liner notes, individually designed labels and inner sleeve and a collector’s obi strip.

There is no one who plays the piano quite like Vijay Iyer, indeed the term ‘pianist’ falls way short of doing him justice. Even the word ‘musician’ seems to tell only a part of his story. The New York Times has called him a “social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway,” and yet Iyer’s creative paths always lead back to the piano-as a non-verbal means of expression for a penetrating intellect capable of encompassing, uniting and explaining a broad spectrum of disciplines, time periods and cultures.

Whereas ‘solo’ was ultimately released under a simple title, there had also been a working title, ‘Autoscopy’, a word which pinpoints the origins and the essence of this astonishing sequence of music. It is Iyer’s attempt, as he says, to view himself from the outside and to investigate how his musical identity was shaped by his personal influences, from Thelonious Monk, Andrew Hill, Duke Ellington, Muhal Richard Abrams, Randy Weston, Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra (Herman Blount), to contemporaries / collaborators such as Wadada Leo Smith, Steve Coleman and Roscoe Mitchell.

‘solo’ is a unique and fascinating album full of contrast. With every track, Vijay Iyer opens a fresh door into his musical cosmos: always surprising, often straddling past and present, from Duke Ellington to Steve Coleman, alongside his own multifaceted and infinitely engaging compositions and improvisations. From lyricicism to fury, from minimalism to opulence, from the irresistibly melodious to the jarringly atonal. And again and again we catch more than a glimmer of dry humour-to leaven the seriousness, the thoughtfulness, the genius that is Vijay Iyer. ‘solo’ is a timeless milestone of the kind that only the human mind and spirit is capable of producing.