RH1009
Shard I
Tape Loop A Echo
Shard II
Shard III
Barbershop
And The Pieces Are Falling
Shard IV
Shard V
8:01
5:43
4:03
6:42
5:52
2:48
6:06
4:52
BlankFor.ms: electronics, tape loops, processing
Jason Moran: piano
Marcus Gilmore: drums
Performance and transformation merge as one on Shards - the eagerly anticipated second album from pianist Jason Moran, electronic musician BlankFor.ms, and drummer Marcus Gilmore. Set for release on May 1, 2026 via Red Hook Records, Shards continues the sonic exploration the trio initiated on 2023's Refract, digging deeper into the possibilities of design and construction of musical events in real time.
Where Refract explored the intersection of analog and digital worlds, Shards finds the group comfortably settled into their sound and taking their time, unfolding events over lengthier pieces. As Moran and Gilmore play, BlankFor.ms captures microfragments of sound—sped up, slowed down, reversed, granulated—and sends them back to his collaborators like glimpses into a broken mirror. The trio receives echoes of their immediate past, or even further back in time, and gathers these temporal shards into improvisations that possess the organic unity of paintings while functioning as sonic collages.
The interaction between the acoustic instruments and electronics yields fascinating sonic ambiguities. BlankFor.ms navigates between extremes, at times generating harsh, complex noise textures and at others crafting lush, beautiful soundscapes. Moran moves from delicate, rhapsodic passages to rougher, more angular terrain, while Gilmore drives infectious grooves alongside moments of pure abstraction and space. The blend of timbres often obscures their sources, creating an immersive audio landscape where piano, drums, and processed sound interweave into a single, multidimensional whole.
The album's conceptual framework centers on fragmentation and reconstruction. As the liner notes observe, "the piano and drums fold into each other and themselves, looping back and forth between sound, data, past, future—information moving at the lightning speed of musicians' minds." Each musical gesture by these musicians leaves a mark in three virtual dimensions, shaping an infinite number of images as the record plays.
Following the critical reception of Refract, which The New York Times praised for its work "across medium and style, with composed elements and prepared loops," Shards represents a maturation of the group's collaborative language. The spectrum of ideas is broad. Meditative passages give way to exploratory abstraction, and angular rhythms coexist with lyrical melody.
Throughout, the production quality maintains Red Hook Records' signature meticulous attention to sonic detail, presenting the trio's intricate interplay with remarkable clarity and presence.
Shards makes music of intimate expansiveness from embodied histories, time, and technology, a record where the process of hardening, fracturing, and rebuilding happens live, with every splinter of time brought to the surface of perception.
Recorded: 19-20 October 2024
The Bridge Studio, Brooklyn NY
Engineer: Amon Drum, Greg Tock
Mixing: Rick Kwan
Mastering: Taylor Deupree
All photos: Ingo J. Biermann
Cover Art: Laura Charlton
Design: Matthew Appleton
Produced by Sun Chung
"The results are stunning"
Wall Street Journal - Martin Johnson
"A mesmerizing and ultimately undefinable 'journey into sound', to quote an oft-sampled record from hiphop's golden age."
The Wire - Phil Freeman
"A fascinating listen that navigates the spherers of acoustic and electronic."
Post Genre - Jim Hynes
"Shards is the sound of three musicians who have found a common language and speak it fluently."
Jazz Views - Tim Larsen
" For 2023’s Refract, the results were damn near magical, practically redefining the nebulous umbrella labeled nu jazz. The threesome reassembles for Shards and picks up right where they left off."
The Big Takeover - Michael Toland
"The new one is a natural extension of Refract. Check out both together. Exciting and beautiful, without fail."
The Moderns
"What’s remarkable is how settled they sound. Refract was the handshake; Shards is the conversation."
UK Vibe - Steve Williams
"It is a masterpiece that allows you to experience the process of fragments of time being broken and reconstructed in the high-resolution sound unique to Red Hook Records."
Disk Union Japan
"Get ready to be spirited into another world."
Lament For A Straight Line - Jim Macnie
"A real-time sonic collage of intimate expansiveness."
A Closer Listen
"Shards finds the group comfortably settled into their sound, digging deeper into the possibilities of designing and constructing musical events in real time. This is our Chosen One."
One Jazz
"The interplay between acoustic instruments and electronics produces a series of fascinating ambiguities."
Paris Move - Thierry De Clemensat