CD review: Chris Pitsiokos – CP Unit – Riding Photon Time 2019: Video, CD cover

In the last few days, I was able to listen to the new recordings of the author’s three major saxophone players. Both are new works led by the group, and it is quite suitable for the first quarter of the 21st century that the media is different from download / CD / net radio. Each detailed review will be handed over to another occasion, so let’s briefly introduce it as a listener’s guide.

This is the third live album of the 3rd work of the leader quartet CP unit of alto saxophonist Chris Pizziocos from the New York improvisation scene. The first five songs were recorded live at the German Moers Festival in May last year, and the latter three songs were recorded at the Unlimited Music Festival in Austria in November. Funkness that cannot be danced, sharpened tone, mischievous scene development and the amount of information that can not be processed sprints, energy is released like a glow from a lump of foreign objects playing in a four-seater seat while looking at each other Is done. Although it was composed by Pizziocos, it was a vibrant documentary with a life that was unwritten due to the spontaneous interaction of the live space.

“Riding Photon Time” is CP Unit’s first live album. This offering includes compositions featured on previous and forthcoming studio releases, as well as two pieces that have never been recorded in the studio at all. With CP Unit, my guiding principle is that the collective imagination is always greater that of the individual. The compositions exist not as pre-formed aesthetic visions, but as scenarios in which my bandmates and I can take the music down unforeseen passages night after night. Creating a live album, then, was an attempt to capture the essence of this spontaneity in album form. I hope you enjoy.

1. Once Upon a Time Called Now (excerpt) 5:13
2. Positional Play 2:56
3. Sibylant 8:29
4. The Tower 3:05
5. A Knob on the Face of a Man 5:06
6. Seasick 3:02
7. Dirt is the New Clean 4:56
8. Orelius 5:25

Chris Pitsiokos – alto saxophone, electronics
Sam Lisabeth – electric guitar
Henry Fraser – electric bass
Jason Nazary – drum set and electronics