Bleep

After being out of print for several years, Duval Timothy’s ‘Brown Loop’ has finally been reissued on The Vinyl Factory / Carrying Colour, with slightly adjusted tracklisting.

Multidisciplinary artist and musician Duval Timothy innovates as well as entertains on his second LP Brown Loop. Much like the three coloured stripes that adorn the cover of this release, Timothy’s works for solo piano carry a trifecta of distinct styles — jazz, classical and minimalism — which he deftly weaves into one deceptively simple cross-genre package.

The choppy one-two rhythm that underpins the unexpected jauntiness of ‘Through The Night’ and ‘Cold Is Coming’ and the walking bass tones of ‘Older Than We Used To Be’ reveal Timothy’s own distinct sense of minimalism, containing shades of Steve Reich, Tony Conrad, modal jazz sophistry and the familiar warmth of thumbing piano notes on a particularly dreary, uneventful Sunday afternoon. Elsewhere on Brown Loop, Timothy dons his effortless classical flair, recalling the lilting high ends of Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies and the windswept swells of Joe Hisaishi on the likes of ‘Clouds’, while making space for the gentle aggression of the avant-garde on the bellowing low keys of ‘G’ and ‘Hairs’.

What’s more, we can’t recall a time we’ve heard such risqué combinations sounding so crisp and intimate. Timothy works like an up-close magician; willing to show his workings, but enigmatically refusing to give the whole game away.