Monochromes, by Quentin Tolimieri

Monochromes

by Quentin Tolimieri

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Alex Tripp This music attacks the physical unity of its instrument. Supportive noises pull away from the typically emphasized vibrations and become their own thing. Monochrome 8 sounds like what would happen if you asked a computer to do a complex fractal zoom on a timestreched piano note. There's some truly incredible experiences to be found on this album.

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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
6-Panel gatefold wallet, including a four-page booklet of liner notes by Michael Pisaro-Liu. Cover photography by Quentin Tolimieri, design by Yuko Zama.

Includes unlimited streaming of Monochromes via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Full Digital Discography

31

releases

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of For Piano and Shō, Piano, A room outdoors, Les Signes Passagers, Slow Roads, Continuité, fragilité, résonance, L’Occhio Del Vedere, Circles, Reeds, and Memories, and 23 more. , and , .

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	1.	CD 1: Monochrome 1 13:09
	2.	CD 1: Monochrome 2 09:30
	3.	CD 1: Monochrome 3 12:14
	4.	CD 1: Monochrome 4 09:19
	5.	CD 1: Monochrome 5 09:34
	6.	CD 1: Monochrome 6 12:02
	7.	CD 2: Monochrome 7 05:35
	8.	CD 2: Monochrome 8 35:21
	9.	CD 2: Monochrome 9 07:34
	10.	CD 2: Monochrome 10 08:02
	11.	CD 3: Monochrome 11 07:20
	12.	CD 3: Monochrome 12 23:45
	13.	CD 3: Monochrome 13 13:41
	14.	CD 3: Monochrome 14 11:24
	15.	CD 3: Monochrome 15 10:40
	16.	CD 1: Monochrome 1 (excerpt) 04:06
	17.	CD 1: Monochrome 3 (excerpt) 03:48
	18.	CD 1: Monochrome 6 (excerpt) 03:42
	19.	CD 3: Monochrome 12 (excerpt) 03:23
	20.	CD 2: Monochrome 7 (excerpt) 02:35
	21.	CD 2: Monochrome 10 (excerpt) 02:43

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From the liner notes by Michael Pisaro-Liu

“Tolimieri makes a universe of micro-nuance audible, with each piece consisting of hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of points of contact. Each point is just a little different from its predecessor. One by one, the points carry the music outwards, until the sound canvas is radiantly filled with the sensation of a particular touch.

The succession of Monochromes on these discs has a beautiful logic. I hear it as an attempt to “begin again”, to rediscover the piano, region by region. Each piece focuses on certain characteristics of the piano’s sound so tightly, that it seems as if it was all the instrument was designed to do. Each Monochrome is a small world. Over the course of the three hours the series lasts, we travel across a system of fifteen planets." (Michael Pisaro-Liu)

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Berlin-based composer/pianist Quentin Tolimieri created fifteen piano pieces titled Monochrome 1 - 15 between 2017-2021. Each piece has a distinctive character with a single theme unfolding over a long period of time - some are lulling-style pieces with faint melodies in a slow progression; some are vibrant pieces with intense, repetitive layers of brisk beats, where occasionally a hint of harmony or melody ephemerally appears, in between atonal and tonal, or in the intersections of overtones and echoes, or behind the thick layers of reverberation. Tolimieri played these pieces decisively, utilizing various techniques with a deep immersion into a monochromatic palette for each piece, successfully bringing out the innate sound of the piano via minimalist approaches to pure sonority.

“It always felt to me that the piano was a bit limited by a kind of music history embedded in its construction: equal temperament, a particular kind of tone quality, etc., even the way the keys are laid out is not from any kind of acoustic necessity, but is, rather, a representation of European harmony.

However, I began to realize that the piano is actually filled with all sorts of sounds, sounds that we don’t really hear or focus on because of all of the structural/linguistic things going on in music, for example a particular melody, a particular harmonic movement, a particular rhythm, a particular formal change. I started thinking if I could eliminate as many of these structures as possible I could start hearing these sounds more clearly. Almost as if, if I could remove the language, the syntax, the grammar, etc., I could hear the actual voice.” — Quentin Tolimieri

credits

released May 27, 2022

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TRACK LIST

CD 1

1. Monochrome 1
2. Monochrome 2
3. Monochrome 3
4. Monochrome 4
5. Monochrome 5
6. Monochrome 6

CD 2

1. Monochrome 7
2. Monochrome 8
3. Monochrome 9
4. Monochrome 10

CD 3

1. Monochrome 11
2. Monochrome 12
3. Monochrome 13
4. Monochrome 14
5. Monochrome 15

elsewhere 022-3

All compositions and piano by Quentin Tolimieri (ASCAP)

Monochromes 1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15: recorded by Benjamin Maumus, 30 November to 2 December 2021, La Maison de la Musique, Cap’Découverte, Le Garric (FR)

mixed by Benjamin Maumus, 3 December 2021, GMEA, Centre National de Création Musicale d’Albi-Tarn, Albi (FR)

Monochromes 2, 3, 6, 8, 11: recorded 12 March 2018 and mixed 5 April 2018 by Ryan Streber, Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, NY (USA)

Monochrome 14: recorded 27 February 2021 and mixed 2 June 2021 by Jürgen-Tito Knapp, Studio Zentri Fuge, Berlin (DE)

mastered by Taku Unami
liner notes by Michael Pisaro-Liu
cover photography by Quentin Tolimieri
design by Yuko Zama
produced by Quentin Tolimieri and Yuko Zama

p+c 2022 elsewhere music

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elsewhere Jersey City, New Jersey

elsewhere music is a US-based record label founded in 2018 by Yuko Zama, focusing on new trends in contemporary classical music and beyond, specifically composed works.

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