“gennet_robbie”
Robbie Gennet
Pianarchy
Niggles Music
Can’t judge a book by looking at the cover. On first glance, this record would appear to be yet another 20-something rebel on a trust fund wanting to make the world think he’s the next Trent Reznor. Clad in black, longhaired, and demonic-looking, you can almost hear him in music store, pounding out “Teen Spirit”, annoying the clerks.
Ha.
Robbie Gennet is instead a remarkable self-taught pianist, who seems to unleash on the keyboard a lifetime spent listening to Metallica, Frank Zappa, and a bawdyhouse barrel roller. The record, featuring nine untitled improvisational works, is eye-opening. Grand at one moment, sly and laughing the next, the works resonate with a fierce command of the instrument and a hell-bent vision of a musical world. If the words “solo piano” bring to mind horrid visions of New Age music or stuffy dead Europeans, try Pianarchy . You might never hear a piano the same way again.
