If Jung’s collective unconscious is to be believed, it starts at the beginning with me with the sound of the piano. There’s something incredibly elemental about the timbre of sound that emanates from this instrument that automatically gives a piece of music an antiquated and, most times, important feel. Lately, an interesting concern among some experimental music composers has been this very instrument and the myriad possibilities associated with it. Here are three:

Goldmund– Door Of Our Home, [Corduroy Road]

Goldmund is also Helios is also Keith Kennniff. It seems that Kenniff’s MO is pretty well mapped out after the two most recent releases from his dual monikers: simple, folk-leaning piano compositions (Helios’ done on synthesizer with beats sometimes added). Fortunately, the emotional resonance is paramount—and Kenniff’s compositions come off as restrained and minimal, rather than boring and lazy. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Not all of Corduroy Road is as good as this, but songs like “My Neighborhood” are even better.

[visit Kenniff’s website here, buy Corduroy Road here, read the Stylus review here]

Ben Kamen– eighty-four, [so the light came / to contain numbers]

Kamen is a part of the up and coming Shinkoyo label. A neo-classical piece with some serial leanings, “eighty-four” rides the hard line between melodicism and the adherence to theory that sometimes make modern composers hard to enjoy. There’s no doubt that there’s a huge amount of emotion put into play here, but listen near the middle of the piece when notes began to fall out of phase with one another, only to regain their footing and return to home. It’s a rare piece that seems both mathematical and human at the same time, but he somehow pulls it off here.

[visit the Shinkoyo website here, buy so the light came / to contain numbers here]

Brent Gutzeit– Piano Motor Skills #2, [Drug Money]

Gutzeit gleefully doesn’t do that job on his “Piano Motor Skills #2,” which is composed entirely of treated piano notes that resemble a (cliché alert!) empty factory in which the workers have gone home for the night for a good bit, until actual notes begin to emerge. The notes are hardly normal, though, sounding more like the aural equivelant of a slinky. Things get dronier and darker from there…

[visit Gutzeit’s website here, buy Drug Money here]