Press Quotes


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  "Pluta succeeded in making the room itself an instrument, its resonance made apparent through this piece. Pluta also altered our perception of time, slowing it at will."
--Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune

"I don't know of a classical ensemble with a more joyously hard-edge, go-for-broke attack"
--Seth Colter Walls, The New York Times

"Genesis is the latest document of Evans's electroacoustic quintet, a band that – thanks in large part to the real-time electronic processing of Sam Pluta – can sound like a bebop combo blasted by a sci-fi scrambler ray."
--Rolling Stone

"Pluta’s live doctoring is radical, making this one of the prime examples of electroacoustic jazz, retaining the values of a “traditional” outfit, but sometimes distorting them into extreme cut-ups of tendril-matter abstraction."
--Martin Longley, Downbeat

"Seven Systems...[is] a mind-warping feat of sonic juggling that leaves me full of energy and curiosity after every listen."
--Peter Margasak, The Chicago Reader

"Mr. Pluta's laptop imitated a chorus of small objects rattled in a bag - glass shards, pebbles, ball bearings...the music was full of symmetry and fracture, flying and stinging."
--Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

"riveting"
--Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise

"The future of computer music is naturally wide open, and it will be interesting to see where it takes us. For now, Sam Pluta and his cohorts are among many musicians who have fired up our senses and fermented our imaginations."
--Nicholas Catalano, All About Jazz

"No group was more bracingly thought-provoking and expansive than the Wet Ink Ensemble. These seven New York musicians/composers are fearless in testing the limitations of what instruments or musical forms can be."
--Edward Ortiz, The San Francisco Classical Voice

"It's not just any festival that would dare to present Rocket Science as a headlining act...Sam Pluta, a master manipulator of real-time signal .. used spontaneous horn sounds as dynamic raw material."
--Peter Margasak, Downbeat

"[The Peter Evans Quintet] can swing like crazy, but there's often an implosion around the corner, triggered either by Mr. Evans or by Sam Pluta, whose live electronics, involving transmogrified samples of his band mates, plays a pervasive but elusive role."
--Nate Chinen, The New York Times

"Rocket Science clearly works, and has a distinctive edge that drew great applause in the sold-out club on a hot night - a fine debut."
--Stephen Graham, Jazzwise Magazine

"A quiet, glistening bell-like beginning quickly fell down a rabbit hole of crashing, jerky activity, marked by nature sounds played over loudspeakers and the weird, wheezy tone of two robotically stimulated snare drums placed among the audience.

An increasingly insistent percussion duet was paired with an increasingly cataclysmic piano one, and then long runs of 16th notes in the pianos formed a flowing fabric for the jittery embroidery of uneven percussion rhythms. Much of the music was anxious, but the writing had cool confidence."
--Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times

"Paul Obermayer, Richard Barrett and Sam Pluta (electronics) put the original quartet on fire. It was the reunification of two universes, there were about 50 minutes of musical fireworks, one of the most wonderful musics I have ever heard live."
--Martin Schray, freejazzblog

"Best Moment of Moers 2012 - ROCKET SCIENCE - It was this new project of Peter Evans, Rocket Science, with Craig Taborn - piano Evan Parker - saxophones, Sam Pluta - electronics. They called in a big way." (translated from Portuguese)
--George Staicu, Musica De Vest

"The music of Sam Pluta is difficult to compartmentalize into genre, but this is good for Machine Language. We could call it minimalism, electroacoustic, noise, neo-futuristic rock whistling very loud, far from concrete abstraction ..." (translated from French)
--Luc Bouquet, Le Son du Grisli

"there were certainly some fascinating things going on that helped to put this on repeat. Improvised music, a meeting of a laptop and two instruments, doesn't always come this loud and full of aggression. Excellent!"
--Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

"Let's just say that [sum and difference] delivers the surface thrill of experimental music - hearing and being amazed by strange sounds - but that the playing also has an underlying thoughtfulness and rapid responsiveness that keeps this stuff rewarding after the novelty wears off."
--Bill Meyer, Dusted

"The ghost in this jazz machine is Sam Pluta's real-time sound processing, which sucks in the live material and scatters and bumps and drizzles it around the sound environment like sonic poltergeist activity."
--Philip Clark, The Wire

"Gulps, kisses and shrieks abet and oppose digital fuzz and clicks until they become a whorl of action, origin indeterminate. Altieri's whining, bent glisses and flurries are likewise an interesting foil to Pluta's glitchy patchwork"
--Clifford Allen, New York City Jazz Record

"The electronics of Sam Pluta take all the risks: they are not a coloring effect, but a living matter." (translated from French)
--Pierre Cécile, Le Son du Grisli

"It certainly applies to the urbanised semi-organised chaos of the title track, experiencing which is like having your ears threaded into a large, mechanical loom, the atoms of your corporeal frame redistributed into a million and one cheap suits to be sold in the Garment District."
--Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector

"With a unit like Rocket Science, Evan Parker (who is approaching 70) can finally realize his improvising conception of real time electronic processing, improvisation, and extended technique."
--Mark Corroto, All About Jazz

"Leave your preconceptions behind, and the art of Evans, Pluta, and Altieri can be considered in the lineage of game-changing sonic adventurers such as Stravinsky, Coleman, and Eno."
--Tim Owen, The Jazz Man

"the showpiece came last: Pluta’s wonderful “Machine Language,” a 2012 work for a very mixed ensemble...The result of these odd timbres was an inspired pairing of a percussive jungle romp, blended with the nervous breakdowns, mood shifts and switches of a 20th Century string quartet. It was very loud, very satisfying, and whip smart."
--Luke Quinton, Austin 360

"Saxophonist Evan Parker’s nonet of trumpeter Peter Evans, bassist Barry Guy, drummer Paul Lytton, pianist Sten Sandell, cellist Okkyung Lee and Paul Obermeyer, Sam Pluta and Richard Barrett on electronics combined mesmerizing strands of electro-acoustic improvisation and virtuosic skill...electronics were like piquant seasoning rather than making up the whole meal, generating an assertive drone, which underscored rather than challenged the soloists."
--Ken Waxman, New York City Jazz Record