Am 31. Oktober erscheint bei Room40 das neue Soloalbum “Within Without” von Alister Spence. Der australische Musiker, bekannt für seine Arbeit zwischen improvisierter Musik und elektroakustischer Klangforschung, widmet sich hier ganz dem Fender Rhodes, das er mit präparierten Elementen, Effekten und perkussiver Spielweise in ein vielschichtig einsetzbares Instrument verwandelt. Entstanden sind 18 eher kurze Stücke, in denen metallische, federnde und bimmelnde Klänge in spannungsvollen Strukturen miteinander verschmelzen. Das Album erscheint als CD und zum Download.

“I first owned a fender rhodes electric piano in the late 1970s. It was a Mark 1 model (wooden key action). I had a band with my younger brother and my best friend from school and this was my ‘portable’ gigging instrument that weighed ‘a ton,’ and only just fitted in our small car. (I eventually got smart and left the 15 kg lid at home.) I had one effects pedal, a Boss chorus. Sadly—due to the rise of synthesisers and electronic keyboard instruments—I sold this lovely instrument in the late 1980s to make room in the house when our daughter Alexandra was imminent. Fortunately in 1990, I was able to buy a Mark II model (plastic keys). As time went by my approach to the instrument began to change as my interest grew in more broadly sonic forms of musical expression. The rhodes became for me a place of exploration where any part of it was open for investigation as a sound source: albeit sometimes stubborn and resistant to any form of resonance! I used it in tandem with a growing selection of sound modifying guitar pedals and slowly began to settle into a collection of those and a sound area that I enjoyed delving into. By 2014 I had begun to use the rhodes in this way in performances and recordings. With Sia/Shoeb Ahmad and Raymond MacDonald I had the good fortune to perform, tour, and record as Sensaround. I also began to take this approach into more expressionistic terrain working with Satoko Fujii; firstly in a piano/rhodes duo, and more recently in a quartet called Kira Kira. But it is in paired back solo exploration that I find the strongest connection with the instrument”. (Alister Spence)