Kelly Moran has detailed a new album. The New York-based composer and producer will share Moves In the Field on March 29 via Warp Records.
The 10-track Moves In the Field is Moran's first full-length since 2018's Ultraviolet, which Exclaim! named among the Best Experimental and Modern Composition Albums of that year.
The new LP is characterized as a return to Moran's roots, eschewing the prepared piano at the core of Ultraviolet and 2017's Bloodroot. This time around, the artist employs a Disklavier — a technologically advanced version of a player piano that can perfectly replicate one's playing.
Moran recalls in a release how she was loaned a Disklavier by Yamaha in early 2020, explaining, "I was initially working on a duet for myself and another pianist, but when the pandemic hit, the player piano became my duet partner. I began writing a series of duets for myself and the Disklavier, exploring all the different ways I could utilize this instrument to merge its inhuman capabilities with my own playing."
The artist shares that her subsequent experimentation went far beyond human capability, explaining, "The Disklavier allowed me to record multiple layers of my playing so I could create music on the piano that would require more fingers or greater endurance than I physically have - like chords that had more than 10 notes in them, or chords that were spaced out farther than my hands could stretch. Sometimes I’d record a pattern and then speed it up to play back faster than I could ever physically play. My imagination exploded at all the possibilities this instrument allowed me to create."
See if you're able to differentiate between Moran's playing and the Disklavier accompaniment below with opener "Butterfly Phase," alongside an album trailer. Moves In the Field was recorded and mixed by Dan Bora, sound engineer for Philip Glass, and mastered by Telefon Tel Aviv's Joshua Eustis.
Moran has also lined up a series of tour dates for Europe and the UK, with further details available via her official website.
Moves In the Field:
1. Butterfly Phase
2. Superhuman
3. Don’t Trust Mirrors
4. Dancer Polynomials
5. Sodalis (II)
6. Leitmotif
7. It’s Okay to Disappear
8. Hypno
9. Moves in the Field
10. Solar Flare
