Stockholm-based, Seoul-native Lisa Ullen presents 'Gold', a home-recording, scribed on June 1st 2020 in her living room on a prepared piano with ZOOM H4. Using a selection of clustered chords, fragmented notes and buzzing timbral preparations, Lisa crashes waves sounds against a dam, letting the pressure of sound build vertically into a thick mass. Half way through the recording, when the dam appears to start leaking, the notes and chord arrangements swim in different directions. Allowing a frame for each to slowly develop and emerge, Lisa brings each tiny aural gesture into being.
Lisa Ullén is one of Sweden’s most influential pianists in contemporary music, and a regular on the free- jazz and improvisational scene. Internationally recognized as a distinctive and uncompromising composer and musician, She has toured in Europe, the USA, Canada and Japan. Ullén now releases her second solo cd , Piano Works – a triple CD of solo piano recordings – as well as the vinyl EP Sekvenser och Lager (Sequences and Layers) with Motståndsorkestern (the Resistance Orchestra), which contains Ullén’s compositions for a bigger band, in which no less than four double basses provide a solid foundation.
“Extraordinary is all I can say as I dive in to her unique approach. /…/Amazing piano, some of it prepared, which should appeals to fans of John Cage as well as of Cecil Taylor.” – Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery
”Ullén takes a measured approach at the cusp of improvised music and contemporary classical, with silence also a big player. Cecil Taylor and John Cage might provide touchstones, but what Ullén does cannot be confused with either. ..And through it all resides the sense of a fiercely- focused intelligence at work”. – John Sharpe, All About Jazz 2018
