js Breaks in music often refer to gaps of silence, some long, and some very short. Its a consideration of these ‘breaks’ and their importance that fuels much of Vijay Iyer’s new album, “Break Stuff”. Despite the pioneering work of Morton Feldman, John Cage and Stockhausen, some consider the manipulation of silence to still be an uncharted frontier in music. Besides the previously mentioned highbrow composers, breaks have found their way into popular music via the art of dubbing and other DJ tricks. Breaks in today’s music world can also refer to break beats and other DJ derived rhythms, and that sort of break also shows up on “Break Stuff”.

There is so much variety on here, Iyer is a restless creator and he fills all 70 minutes of this CD with a wealth of ideas and styles. “Break Stuff” opens somewhat pensively as Iyer explores some very interesting tone colors on the piano. I’m not sure how he gets all of his striking sound effects, possibly by going inside the piano, or that’s how it sounds at least. Partway through the second track, Iyer shifts into fusion mode playing strong rhythmic right hand solo lines that echo the young Chick Corea. On fourth track, “Hood” (named for DJ Robert Hood), Iyer and his group show their appreciation for Detroit techno, the form of techno that imitates African music in its complex rhythmic relationships. Other groups, such as Dawn of Midi, have attempted this sort of thing, and it seems Iyer and his group have achieved the best synthesis of techno and jazz yet.

The variety on this CD continues as Iyer takes on Monk’s “Work”, and shows a Monk styled playful sense of mischief. Other original tracks show Iyer and his rhythm section working with dense textures that recall recent works by Craig Taborn. Bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore supply intelligent support throughout, with Gilmore’s bold and original contributions taking on more importance due to the highly rhythmic nature of this album. To Iyer's credit, one of the very best tracks on the album is a solo piano take on Billy Strayhorn’s sublime “Blood Count”, which Iyer plays elegantly, allowing the rich harmonies to speak for themselves.

Where is modern jazz heading these days, “Break Stuff” offers a lot of possibilities, and despite this album's very eclectic material, it all fits together and makes sense. The uniting factor that ties all these tracks together is the band's stuttering modern rhythms that utilize silence, as well as sound.

snobb After two decades on jazz scene and almost twenty albums released, from more avant-garde early works on American labels to series of catchy chamber jazz and world fusion releases on German ACT,pianist Vijay Iyer built strong reputation as one of most potential modern jazz pianist. It's not strange than that last year he signed contract with ECM, one of the highest acknowledgment evidence for every jazz musician. And here he presented some surprises.

His ECM debut, "Mutations", is nothing less than suite for electronics,piano and string trio, exceptional work for Vijay till now. His second release on ECM, coming from same 2014, is "Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi" - music for musical movie. "Break Stuff", his just released ECM album, is more usual trio music, but all isn't so simple even here.

On "Break Stuff" Iyer returns to his long-standing trio with bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore and the music here sounds a bit more traditional to him,but only from first impression. In reality, acoustic trio wrap to post bop frames all collection of musical genres from minimalist "Mystery Woman" to dissonant "Geese" to almost hip-hop streetwise "Hood". Vijay playing is still quite calculated but unusually warm,even lyrical in moments and all album sounds as one well-made modern creative but easy accessible work. It's far not easy to play music which is complex but sound simple, even more difficult to make such album of many multi-genre and even multicultural elements without sounding eclectic. On "Break Stuff" Vijay succeeded in both.

I have been a bit surprised with album's sound here - it wasn't been recorded in Oslo Rainbow or other usual ECM European studio, but as rule US-recorded albums sound as well as European. Here the sound even being clear is too compressed and tight even for ECM standard, it looks like all music's lifelines is killed by this way. Adding more blood and fresh air to playing and producing would make this album really great. In all other aspects "Break Stuff" is strong and really interesting Vijay job, opening new horizons.