Storring, Nick: Music From Wei LP

Nick Storring's eighth album (and third release for Orange Milk Records) takes the one-person-orchestra approach for which he is acclaimed and translates it to a single instrument: the piano. Recorded on everything from the innards of an old upright piano to a Disklavier (a computer-controlled acoustic piano) housed at Yamaha's Toronto offices, and using playing techniques that span conventional to idiosyncratic, Storring conjures a vast and vivid colour palette. Music from 'Wéi 成为' was composed for the choreography of his frequent collaborator, Yvonne Ng and began its life in a residency at the Banff Centre in December 2017. Just like the unique movement vocabulary found in Ng's quintet dance Wéi 成为, Storring's copiously layered score moves fluidly between tender lyrical phrases and driving interlocking figures, and from thick textural swarms to supple transparency.