Philip Zoubek - Vortex (2020)

Fascinating new music, eventful, alert, detailed and sensitive to the sound aesthetics: Philip Zoubek creatively processes a precisely thought-out and yet spontaneously developed flow of events. In his new solo program, he has layered new sounds into a strikingly plausible and convincing musical journey into unexplored terrain. In creating this musical vortex Zoubek has transformed the piano into a fascinatingly exotic orchestra.

"Vortex" is Philip Zoubek's second solo recording, following his critically reclaimed "Air" (2014). And it is a vortex that foments a hypnotically attractive upward spiral. Within the maelstrom he captures mood pieces, masterpieces in miniature, drawn in a single extensive arc containing some fifty minutes of music. Zoubek then carefully seperates the whole into musically coherent sections. It begins with a search, with the listener as witness; the incipient discoveries break out in a fruitful, eventful stream of consciousness. This music is grounded in Zoubek’s experience acquired through years of work. Thus, he is able to mobilize and control these extraordinary musical events. Here, he employs pieces of wood, e-bows, rubber, and disparate plastic and metal screws to modulate the myriad sounds, as aggressive glissandos swirl around with percussive force; shimmering and rapturous, the sounds echo through momentary caesuras, as they issue into the music’s powerful flow.