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Improbable Pianos

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Robert Scott Thompson - 1988
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Improbable Pianos (1988) — Robert Scott Thompson — Electroacoustic Music

Composed and recorded at the Center for Music Experiment, Computer Audio Research Laboratory (UCSD). Improbable Pianos features various approaches to computer music composition and sound design.  Frequency modulation synthesis (FM) features prominently, as does the use of various compositional algorithms.

...a surreal landscape of alien flowers, giving off sounds instead of fragrances...

Once again Robert Scott Thompson proves that he is second to none when it comes to squeezing the last possible sound out of an instrument. We’ve heard electronic, string and vocal work from him. Here it is the piano which is used to create what I’d like to describe as a surreal landscape of alien flowers, giving off sounds instead of fragrances.

If I have to single out one or two tracks, I think it would have to be tracks #9 and #10, “Stellar” and “Toccata,” “Stellar” being an especially appropriate title, as it it indeed a stellar track, mysterious, spooky and a tad menacing. “Toccata” sets off like a racehorse on speed and never stops, until the very end. Maybe not the most subtle of tracks, but one that makes the blood flow.

Who needs Metallica to get the blood boiling, when you can listen to a track like “Toccata?”

— Ulf Claesson

...foreshadows RST's more experimental computer music works...

Improbable Pianos marks the release of some of Robert Scott Thompson’s earliest professionally realized computer music works. All of these tracks were composed during his days as a Research Assistant and doctoral candidate at the Center for Music Experiment, Computer Audio Research Laboratory (UCSD),where he began his work in computer music. Now remastered and released for the first time – in some cases more than 30 years after the date of their composition, the tracks on Improbable Pianos foreshadow RST’s more experimental computer music works of the last decade, superbly displayed on 1992’s The Strong Eye,1994’s Shadow Gazing and on the critically acclaimed release from 2001, Acousma – heralded as ‘An amazing album’ and ‘Thompson’s most important CD release.’

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