Most piano and electronics recordings take the Alva Noto / Ryuichi Sakamoto approach, preserving the percussive attack of the keyboard while toying respectfully with the sustain. Even Fennesz succumbed to the Japanese artist’s niceties, his two collaborations disappointing in their lack of critical engagement. New York-based, Iranian born Son of Rose aka Kamran Sadeghi takes a more tactile, almost alchemical approach, manipulating the piano’s strings with various objects and digital processing. ‘All In’ is his fourth album and offers a varied yet coherent statement, teetering on the brink between pleasant ambient sound and abstract noise.
The most obvious referent here is, surprisingly, Taylor Deupree, particularly his fondness for gently shimmering sine tones, but Sadhegi’s more willing to reveal his music’s acoustic origins, albeit obliquely. In ‘Falling Forward’, for instance, the opening moments – all lush pads and heavenly chimes – recall Kompakt Pop Ambient, but cracks soon appear, allowing wood and string to jut out. ‘Movement Transposed’ is more obvious, strummed and reverbed strings resembling a multitracked harp, while ‘Nineteen Sixty Five’ is abrupt, metallic swathes looming, lurching, and scratched. While short at three and a half minutes, the final ‘Fragrant’s is perhaps the most inspired, treated scrapes, bows and pings left to meander, calmly lost, like moments of gagaku.
Joshua Meggitt
