the pitch & julia reidy: neutral star

The Pitch is a quartet made up of Boris Baltschun, Koen Nutters, Michael Thieke, and Morten Joh. Founded in Berlin in 2009, they play a hypnotic form of structured improvisation full of acoustic exploration and electronic intervention. On Neutral Star, The Pitch are joined by Australian guitarist/composer extraordinaire Julia Reidy for a record of star gazing electro-acoustic jazz. Reidy's playing and compositional technique between Takoma-style fingerpicking and Glenn Branca-esque microtonality, perfectly complements the loose improvisational framework The Pitch is providing. Accompanied by constant eruptions of vibraphone, clarinet, electronics and double bass punctuation -- while permanently questioned by Reidy's drippingly pearly steel guitar work. The fact that Neutral Star was recorded in one take (by Rabih Beaini in his Morphine Raum studio/venue) in front of a live audience and without overdubs is hard to believe, even for the trained ear. The recording appears to be too multilayered for a single snapshot, with its compositional structures constantly shifting and moving against themselves, counterintuitively and anti-cyclically. Clear LP. Edition of 240 copies. Includes download code.