Peter Herbert - Quiet Riots (2024) Hi-Res

For years, the artists Peter Herbert and Wolfgang Mitterer have been linked by a professional and friendly bond. Peter Herbert, the busy jack-of-all-trades, who says he prefers playing in a duo rather than alone, and Wolfgang Mitterer, who always creates the necessary sensation for some brutal sounds. The first conscious perception of Mitterer's brilliant playing style - according to Peter Herbert - was at a concert by the legendary band The Pat Brothers (Linda Sharock/Wolfgang Puschnig/Wolfgang Reisinger/Wolfgang Mitterer). Since then, Peter Herbert has harbored the desire to record an album with Wolfgang Mitterer as a duo, as both are at home in jazz and improvisational music. Several collaborations followed over the decades, but the duo album had to wait until today.

Quiet Riots is first and foremost the story of a friendship built on mutual admiration. The album opens with the classic, Nardis by Miles Davis. This is followed by four new (improvisation) pieces for acoustic bass, prepared piano and electronics - Quiet Riot 01-04. Another classic serves as an intermezzo: Someday My Prince Will Come by Frank Churchill, known from the Walt Disney animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs from 1937. After three more variations of Quiet Riot, the album closes with the piece Emily by Johnny Mandel.

Musically, the duo Herbert/Mitterer mixes stylistic elements of jazz, improvisation and new music - the signature of the two musicians is unmistakable for lovers. Because of the terminology and not the style, the album refers figuratively to ragtimes. Ragtimes - from the English "ragged time" - means something like torn, wild or rough times. And what is more advisable than to counteract a time that seems to have gone off the rails with the magical power of music?