P53 (album)

P53, sometimes written p53, is a 1996 live album by experimental music group P53. It was their debut album and was recorded at the 25th Frankfurt Jazz Festival in Germany on 16 September 1994. It was released in 1996 in the United Kingdom by Recommended Records.

P53 was an musical improvisational project that involved two classical grand pianists, a percussionist, a homemade guitarist and turntablist, and a real-time sampler/processor.

Music

The instrumentation of the P53 project consisted of two grand pianos, amplified turntables, a homemade electric guitar, percussion, electronics and real time processing. Cutler's interest in sampling and turntablism began when it became possible to "play" them as instruments, and not just "run them in". This led to the idea of "real-time montaging", which formed the basis of P53.

Cutler established P53 as a free improvisation project within a predetermined structure to investigate the notion of making "improvisation a compositional endeavour". Cutler wanted it to question the nature of music and how listening to music has changed. He wanted to "pit acoustic sounds and the classical music tradition", two grand pianos, against "electronic timbres and the contemporary sound world", amplified turntables, electric guitar, computer generated sounds and real-time processing. He also wanted to contrast the difference between "early 20th century concert listening and the channel-hopping aesthetic of the fin de siecle '90's".

P53 (disambiguation)

P53 may refer to:

P53 (band)

P53, sometimes written p53, was an experimental music group commissioned by English percussionist Chris Cutler to play at the 25th Frankfurt Jazz Festival in Germany in September 1994. Their performance was recorded and released by Recommended Records in 1996 on a live album entitled P53. The group reassembled in May 1997 to play at the Angelica International Festival of contemporary music in Bologna, Italy. In November 2006 a new and reduced lineup of P53 performed with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow, Scotland, which was recorded and broadcast by the BBC in March 2007.

P53 was an musical improvisational project that centred on the music of two classical grand pianists, accompanied by percussion, homemade guitar, turntable scratching, and real-time sampling/processing of the pianists.

History

In 1994 English percussionist Chris Cutler was asked by the organisers of the 25th Frankfurt Jazz Festival in Germany as to whether he had a project for the event. Cutler said "yes" and took the opportunity to try out a new musical idea involving "real-time montaging" that he had been contemplating. He used the festival's generous budget to form a quintet of musicians from around the world. Billed as "The Chris Cutler Project" before there was time to give it its name, P53 consisted of Cutler (percussion, electronics), German classical pianist Marie Goyette (grand piano), Polish classical pianist and composer Zygmunt Krauze (grand piano), German composer and performer Lutz Glandien (samples, real-time processing), and Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist Otomo Yoshihide (turntables, homebuilt guitar).