Dawn Of Midi

No Musical Instrument Digital Interfaces are employed in the line-up of Dawn Of Midi. First features a fully formed, piano-led trio that are a further distillation of the intimacy of Bill Evans, Paul Bley and Claude Debussy. Percussionist Qasim Naqvi, contrabassist Aakaash Israni and pianist Amino Belyamani offer ten spontaneous improvisations of a quiet, contemplative nature, which nonetheless are sonically immersive. Timbre is all-important throughout, and the gentle collisions of wood on steel or skin from each member constantly modulate so that the listener barely knows which musician is responsible for which sound. Fortunately, there are many spaces in which to relax ― often the music disappears for prolonged pauses, only to re-emerge and reanimate an idea. Because of the instrumentation, one is tempted to call this jazz (as in my Bley and Evans comparisons), but perhaps the MIDI reference isn't so far fetched; its sparseness would be a perfect fit on an experimental electronic label like Touch.