Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio - Armageddon Flower (2025)

The seminal Matthew Shipp String Trio (Shipp: piano, Mat Maneri: viola, William Parker: bass) reconvened to commune with tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman for an auspicious late 2024 studio session, 'Armageddon Flower' is the epic result.

These players have worked together in various configurations going on 30 years. Each is a relentless searcher unpacking new ways of exemplifying tradition, language, physics, material, and energy in this art form, both as soloists and within a collective, creative action.

This work is fundamentally a group music; while there are sections of duo and trio interaction, the onus is on a four-way conversation in which parallel streams become oceans of sound, only to be distilled into isolated rivulets once again. Without a drummer but with forward motion and bounce, the music on Armageddon Flower is sublimely striking and operates in a continuous flow of both impulsion and idea.

As these four musicians have spent decades together in various capacities, their language is on one level honed. What's surprising is that entirely new pathways are exploding into view. It's unquestionable that this is music of necessity, of striving, and of possibility.

Ivo Perelman: tenor saxophone
Matthew Shipp: piano
Mat Maneri: viola
William Parker: bass