Search - Vijay Iyer :: Bloodsutra

"The cohesive group's ethos is at once reflective and kinetic...this is exciting and eminently listenable stuff, intuitive in bearing and dynamic in execution. An essential for adventurous listeners, [it] could also serve as an ideal introduction to Iyer's burgeoning oeuvre." - JAZZTIMES "Raises Iyer's writing and playing to the next level... Blood Sutra finds him engaging in sharply diverse but well-balanced forms on each track - and coming up a winner every time...not simply a great jazz record, Blood Sutra is a statement of purpose from an artist whose youth stands in contrast to his irrefutable skill." - JAZZIZ "Blood Sutra is a terrifically challenging record. But challenging music is often the most rewarding, and this suite of 12 perfectly interlocking songs follows through on that promise...Iyer's compositions are moving jazz in a new direction." - COLORADO SPRINGS INDEPENDENT The Vijay Iyer Quartet's stunning follow-up to Panoptic Modes now re-released on Pi Recordings! The word "blood" conjures up a series of symbolically charged associations: health, kinship, identity, race, violence, liquidity and desire. "Sutra" is a Sanskrit term meaning "thread," and it is used to denote ancient sacred and scholarly texts on the healing arts, mathematics, yoga, Buddhist practice, love, and many other subjects. Thus, this album is the quartet's multi-threaded conversation on the densely clotted subject of blood, the fluid process of associative meaning and the flowing, pulsating collective meditation. All 12 pieces are Iyer originals - with the exception of "Because of Guns (Hey Joe Redux)" - and feature the band's rhythmic hallmarks as well as the well-documented interplay between Iyer and Mahanthappa. This generation's version of Monk and Coltrane, Blood Sutra showcases what is now recognized as one of the most fruitful relationships in jazz today. Reimagining, released in 2005, was listed in JazzTimes' Top 10 of 2005, and continues the documentation of the duo's relationship.