UMBRa
Elias Stemeseder/Christian Lillinger (Intakt)
Tesserae
Tilo Weber (We Jazz)
by Stuart Broomer
Austrian-born, now New York-based, pianist Elias
Stemeseder first gained recognition playing with
drummer Jim Black and tenor saxophonist/flute
player Anna Webber. His 2022 Intakt debut, Piano
Solo, demonstrated his conceptual range, technical
brilliance and willingness to pursue structural
complexity in even brief episodes. While that
album presented him as a traditional modernist,
these two recent releases reveal an advanced
post-modernism. He turns his attention to diverse
sounds and techniques through collaborations
with various musicians in New York and Europe,
including drummer Christian Lillinger and
bassist Petter Eldh (partners in unique projects
such as Koma Saxo, Punkt.Vrt.Plastik and Amok
Amor), representing a radical approach to free
improvisation, electronica and extensive postproduction.
On UMBRa, co-led with Lillinger, Stemeseder
is highly involved in the recording process. His
credits contrast with those on Solo Piano, all the way
to the absence of a conventional piano, and include
composition, production, lautenwerk (an 18th
century keyboard that resembles a harpsichord,
but with nylon strings), synthesizer, electronics
and Una Corda (an upright piano with one string
per key). Lillinger’s roles here are composition,
production, drums, sampler and synthesizer.
That variety is enhanced by four guest musicians,
added individually or in pairs throughout the
album: Peter Evans (trumpet), Russell Hall (bass),
Brandon Seabrook (banjo, guitar) and DoYeon Kim
(gayageum: a traditional Korean plucked zither
instrument).
The result is a sonic utopia arising in segments
ranging from one minute to over seven, designated
as “Cycles”. The short just over minute-long “Cycle
IV” consists of rhythmically disjunct percussion
emphasizing a bass drum and high-pitched metal,
while at the longer range, the seven and a half
minute “Cycle VI” includes the quicksilver work
of Evans and Seabrook in a continuously shifting
collage. The bracketed “Cycle V” highlights
sounds as diverse as backwards cymbal recordings
and contrasting string tunings (gayageum, banjo,
Una Corda), which arise in a continuous series
of elisions and collisions, a brilliant field of
disconnection that characterizes both individual
tracks and the work as a whole.
Tesserae (the title refers to the small stones or
tiles used in a mosaic) could not be more dissimilar
than UMBRa, and is yet strangely similar. Led
by Berlin-based Tilo Weber—who composed the
material and whose percussion instruments include
vibraphone—the basic trio consists of Stemeseder
(harpsichord, celeste, synthesizers) and Petter
Eldh (bass, acoustic guitar). The music is almost
militantly pretty, usually tonal and melodic,
featuring instruments that are singularly light, but
with odd harmonic features, strange layerings and
sudden shifts in rhythm and texture.
On the opening “Time Traveler’s Vessel”,
Stemeseder’s keyboards are bright, Eldh’s bass
lightly buoyant and, at one point, Weber even plays
his snare with brushes. The diverging overdubbed
keyboards of “Nacre Nacre” provide the uncanny
suggestion of Muzak from multiple elevators. The
effect is refreshingly disconcerting, with a certain
prettiness that’s not the enemy of beauty, but
rather the cloak of an alien messenger. “In Epitaxy”
adds the flutes of Anna-Lena Schenker and Bastian
Dunker to further compound both polyphony and
buoyancy. In its own subtle way, Tesserae demands
active listening.

UMBRa
Elias Stemeseder/Christian Lillinger (Intakt)
Tesserae
Tilo Weber (We Jazz)
by Stuart Broomer
Austrian-born, now New York-based, pianist Elias
Stemeseder first gained recognition playing with
drummer Jim Black and tenor saxophonist/flute
player Anna Webber. His 2022 Intakt debut, Piano
Solo, demonstrated his conceptual range, technical
brilliance and willingness to pursue structural
complexity in even brief episodes. While that
album presented him as a traditional modernist,
these two recent releases reveal an advanced
post-modernism. He turns his attention to diverse
sounds and techniques through collaborations
with various musicians in New York and Europe,
including drummer Christian Lillinger and
bassist Petter Eldh (partners in unique projects
such as Koma Saxo, Punkt.Vrt.Plastik and Amok
Amor), representing a radical approach to free
improvisation, electronica and extensive postproduction.
On UMBRa, co-led with Lillinger, Stemeseder
is highly involved in the recording process. His
credits contrast with those on Solo Piano, all the way
to the absence of a conventional piano, and include
composition, production, lautenwerk (an 18th
century keyboard that resembles a harpsichord,
but with nylon strings), synthesizer, electronics
and Una Corda (an upright piano with one string
per key). Lillinger’s roles here are composition,
production, drums, sampler and synthesizer.
That variety is enhanced by four guest musicians,
added individually or in pairs throughout the
album: Peter Evans (trumpet), Russell Hall (bass),
Brandon Seabrook (banjo, guitar) and DoYeon Kim
(gayageum: a traditional Korean plucked zither
instrument).
The result is a sonic utopia arising in segments
ranging from one minute to over seven, designated
as “Cycles”. The short just over minute-long “Cycle
IV” consists of rhythmically disjunct percussion
emphasizing a bass drum and high-pitched metal,
while at the longer range, the seven and a half
minute “Cycle VI” includes the quicksilver work
of Evans and Seabrook in a continuously shifting
collage. The bracketed “Cycle V” highlights
sounds as diverse as backwards cymbal recordings
and contrasting string tunings (gayageum, banjo,
Una Corda), which arise in a continuous series
of elisions and collisions, a brilliant field of
disconnection that characterizes both individual
tracks and the work as a whole.
Tesserae (the title refers to the small stones or
tiles used in a mosaic) could not be more dissimilar
than UMBRa, and is yet strangely similar. Led
by Berlin-based Tilo Weber—who composed the
material and whose percussion instruments include
vibraphone—the basic trio consists of Stemeseder
(harpsichord, celeste, synthesizers) and Petter
Eldh (bass, acoustic guitar). The music is almost
militantly pretty, usually tonal and melodic,
featuring instruments that are singularly light, but
with odd harmonic features, strange layerings and
sudden shifts in rhythm and texture.
On the opening “Time Traveler’s Vessel”,
Stemeseder’s keyboards are bright, Eldh’s bass
lightly buoyant and, at one point, Weber even plays
his snare with brushes. The diverging overdubbed
keyboards of “Nacre Nacre” provide the uncanny
suggestion of Muzak from multiple elevators. The
effect is refreshingly disconcerting, with a certain
prettiness that’s not the enemy of beauty, but
rather the cloak of an alien messenger. “In Epitaxy”
adds the flutes of Anna-Lena Schenker and Bastian
Dunker to further compound both polyphony and
buoyancy. In its own subtle way, Tesserae demands
active listening.