American Record Guide

Put Chick Corea, Iannis Xenakis, Nikolai Kapustin and Brian Ferneyhough in the same room and something like this might emerge. Pianist and composer Camden Reeves was born into a family of jazz players in Oxford in 1974 and studied at Exeter and York. He combines the blues and energy of jazz with spectralism and modernism in these pieces, all from 2013 to 2019.

Tangle-Beat Blues is a maximalist exploration of the piano’s sounds all the way across its range. Gestures are brusque, the rhythms are complex in the extreme, and tempos shift at their own whim. Brash chords interrupt wandering post-serial lines. Blue Sounds for Piano heads towards introspection; the chords here are mellow and full, but the harmonic language gives them a keen edge. It’s quiet but not easy listening, Reeves holds this mood for a full 7 minutes; a brief outburst shatters the reverie, but the mood returns, if slightly less settled. The Nine Preludes use the same techniques in more bite-sized portions. Tom Hicks handles these astonishingly difficult pieces with ease and a tone that’s firm but never harsh; the piano sound is impeccable.

—Stephen Estep