skaller/holt duo: music of mark dresser (2010)
Pianists Philip Skaller and Danny Holt explore their quirky kind of rhythmic virtuosity (and ferocity), informed by both experimental jazz and contemporary classical music. The music of Mark Dresser is the canvas for the duo’s first album, a set of five ambitious, imaginative, and playful deconstructions of Dresser tunes for two pianos (and other keyboard instruments, percussion, and musical toys.) Skaller/Holt Duo explores the intersection of composition and improvisation with an obsessive and virtuosic deconstruction of time: speed, cycles, density and rates of flow, acceleration, deceleration, augmentation, diminution, rhythm, groove, chaos.
“…like John Cage on some mind-altering substance.”
“If you haven’t gotten your daily (or weekly, or monthly or yearly) dose of different, this duo serves it up quite nicely…Unless you’re so hung up on form and tradition that you (just) can’t tolerate music that takes you down new paths and new modes of thinking/hearing, you will love this…one of the best improvised albums I’ve heard (yet) this year”
“…an impressionistic panorama of Dresser’s work. With nimble phrasings, asymmetrical pulses and faint melody lines, the duo exercises a highly rhythmic and surrealist portraiture via swirling dialogues, temperate interludes, and climactic crescendos…Effectively, they shun convention and pose an array of persuasive ideologies…”
“The Skaller/Holt Duo (Philip and Danny, respectively) is decidedly different…It is music of energy, ultra-expressiveness and a little slapdash helter-skelter thrown in besides….quite invigorating and really interesting.”
“…sometimes stark, sometimes herky-jerky, sometimes dreamy, and almost always rather…peculiar. We love piano music…but we’ve never heard piano music exactly like this before.”