Limpe Fuchs - Alloa

Limpe Fuchs doesn't consider herself a pianist as such, and yet here we are with our second piano-led record from the German composer in as many weeks. How she's ended up sat at that same stool again seems to be somewhat serendipitous, having rescued and restored a grand piano from a Swiss concert hall, an endeavour that feels like a natural extension of her lifelong interest in homemade instruments. And just as with that interest, here she's choosing to bring a little of the unexpected to an otherwise conventional form. Though built outwards from the same instrument, Alloa (Bavarian for 'alone') is a somewhat different presentation to that of the comparatively straight bat of Pianoon. Side A is dominated by the programmatically titled 'Playpiano' , a 21min+ move around the keys that on the surface could twin with some aspects of the classical-referencing playing on that other record, but over its duration hints at a more playfully mischievous approach from Fuchs. It's an impulse she pursues more readily on the five proceeding pieces, embracing the atonal and discordant, and adding in the occasional vocal leap that lends a distinct kind of high drama to proceedings. It's Fuchs MO to a T, embracing an instrument she doesn't consider herself especially adept at (though she certainly is) and bending it her own unpredictable way, sometimes dissonant, sometimes divergent, but ultimately able to route back to wider, meaningful purview. How many octogenarians remain so determinedly resolved in the pursuit of their own specific worldview?