ALISTER SPENCE

ALWAYS EVER

Alister Spence Music

Alister Spence, piano/preparations/percussion/composer/arranger.

Australian pianist and composer, Alister Spence offers a deeply personal collection of experimental music on his latest album release, “Always Ever.”  This work is made up wholly of improvised compositions, each solo production delivering a unique look at the piano and what the instrument can offer. Hand-in-hand with Alister Spence’s vivid imagination, beginning with his tune called, “Mystic” the solo pianist employs artistic challenges. The first solo arrangement plucks and prods beneath the hood of the piano. At first, he plays the strings.  Then he moves tentatively to the black and white keys.

“Over time, the playing of the piano for me has expanded to encompass the whole piano, more than just playing the keys.  I’m interested in contingency. I’m interested in accidents and what they cause to happen in the music, and I deliberately try to create those accidents for myself,” Spence explains.

The sixteen songs on this album strive to explore and introduce Alister’s approach to this instrument, obviously becoming more and more experimental with each unveiled composition.  In his four-decade career, this is his first solo outing.  As I listen, I find myself intrigued with his exploration process and surprised at the myriads of tone and texture he pulls from the piano.  There are times when he clones his style into something similar to the Cecil Taylor approach.

“I’ve long been interested in the color of sound,” Alister Spence shares in his press package.

This music is not for the faint of heart. On a tune called “Play of Light” his hands chop at the piano keys and then weave in bird-like flight (with flying fingers) sending tones into space and peaking my attention.  This is improvised, sometimes Avant-garde music, all pumped from the hands and spirit of one master musician. You can get on board and take his rocket ship ride into space,  or leave the room.

“I do things throughout this album where I’m only broadly aware of how they’re going to sound. So much is just open to the moment, to the particular place where I strike the string or hit the frame. There’s lots of flux in what happens after that. Even if I’m playing the piano more conventionally, I try to deliberately make myself go off track so that I’m not able to guess what’s going to happen as a result.  It’s so exciting to work my way into and out of that situation,” Alister Spence affirms with excitement coloring his words.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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