‘Phalanx Ambassadors’ from pianist/keyboardist/composer Matt Mitchell,
features works that burst forth with intricate detail, featuring precise execution of multi-layered rhythmic material, adventurous harmonic exploration and otherworldly melodies. While rigorously structured, the music also leaves ample room for intertwining improvisation.
The eponymously-named band - with Mitchell on piano and keyboards, Okazaki on guitars, Patricia Brennan on vibraphone and marimba, Kim Cass on bass, and Kate Gentile on drums - rehearsed for eight months in advance of their first performance in 2016, evidence not just of the music’s difficulty, but of the shared commitment to this music from each of the band’s members.
Along with producer David Torn, the musicians descend into the maelstrom that is Mitchell’s idiosyncratic sound world, creating music that eludes all genre boundaries and conventions.
Will Layman in PopMatters calls Mitchell “the most complete and well-integrated improvising pianist of the last 15 years.” He also called his prior release,
‘A Pouting Grimace’ (Pi 2017), “brilliant and varied...animated by breathtaking compositional imagination and startling arrangements.”
If Pi Recordings has a “house pianist,” Mitchell would be it. Not only is this his fourth release as a leader for the label, he’s also appeared on seven other critically-acclaimed Pi releases from Steve Coleman, Dan Weiss, Jonathan Finlayson and Anna Webber, not to mention his work with the likes of Tim Berne, Dave Douglas, John Hollenbeck, John Zorn, and Linda May Han Oh, among many others.
