Bleep

London pianist and composer Duval Timothy has had a big year. While the contemporary jazz scene has proved fertile ground for Timothy’s solo and collaborative work, the pop world has started to take notice too. In fact, the latest Kendrick Lamar LP (a major event release by any metric) featured composition and production from Timothy on several tracks, while his influence spilled over onto a few tracks that didn’t bear his fingerprints as well. It’s safe to say that the mainstream has certainly caught up to his prodigious skills and deft ear for melody. So then what better time than now to remind the heads, or inform those new to the fold, exactly what he does so well. Pieced together from recordings that date from 2019 to 2022 and tracked with 3 distinctly different pianos, Duval Timothy returns to his solo work with a new LP entitled Meeting With A Judas Tree.

It’s safe to say that Timothy’s 2021 residency stay at the Mahler Foundation in Spoleto, Italy provides the backbone and guided the connective nature of Judas Tree. Field recordings taken there, as well in London and Ghana of animals and other wildlife cohabit with those expressive pianos on tracks like ‘Up’ and ‘Drift’, providing the framework for a collection of music explicitly about what nature means to him. Gustav Mahler’s own 'Das Lied Von Der Erde' also swirls around this record, as it was a piece that TImothy worked largely in response to during his time at the institute. Its themes of mortality and man’s place within the world are certainly felt in the deeply idyllic work of Judas Tree.