Mutations is Vijay Iyer’s first album as a leader for ECM, and in the video above the pianist and composer introduces the album, to be released by the German label in early-March. The 13 tracks of this electro-acoustic chamber work are shaped around a 10-part suite first performed in 2005 called ‘Mutation’ scored here for string quartet, piano, and electronics. Each of the pieces is built out of a cell and fragment-like structure and each comes with a sub title that provides some clues to content. Iyer mentions one unusual aspect of his approach in the video, referring to ‘VII’, where the string players are given a set of instructions, a “gesture palette” of notated material the musicians can draw on spontaneously and interpret. The remaining tracks are solo tracks beginning with the poetically titled ‘Spellbound and Sacrosanct, Cowrie Shells and the Shimmering Sea’, based on a piece that appeared in a trio version on Iyer’s 1995 debut Memoraphilia plus two pieces ‘Vuln, Part 2’ and ‘When We’re Gone’ composed by Iyer last summer

You can listen to VII from the suite, 'Kernel', here: http://player.ecmrecords.com/vijay_iyer-mutations