[…]Nicola Cipani’s exploration of brokendown New York pianos, The Ill-Tempered Piano, results in a fascinating collection of improvisations when necessity is truly the mother of invention. The impression, from a track such as “Scemophonia”, is that each piano is capable of little else and the disc’, success is a credit to Cipani’s creativity. Transgeographical gestalts are sometimes invoked purely as a symptom of a piano’s condition, as on the microtonally mesmerizing “Outsourced Music”. No matter how ‘out’ the tunings, many rhythmic constructions are fairly simple, evoking swing or funk.[…]
Marc Medwin