Those fortunate enough to experience the elysian enchantments of Prelude, this year’s fascinating debut full-length by Rebeka Rusjan Zajc, will already have fallen under the enigmatic charm-spells cast by the Slovenian pianist’s imaginative amalgams of jazz and chamber music.
Clean Feed’s new boxset, Introducing Rebeka Rusjan Zajc, elaborates on the intrinsic otherworldliness of that collection while illuminating further dimensions of its virtuosic artist’s wonderfully singular takes on the solo piano tradition.
Across five captivating albums, recorded between September 19, 2023 and February 27, 2024 at the Power Sound Studio in Amsterdam, Zajc unfurls her series of cursive ‘operas’, a succession of sublime real-time compositions, candid zonas of profound expression, examination and performative poise, fraught with all the drama, mystery and movement of the theatrical form.
While Prelude seemed to condense time via a focused lens, here it flows like a river (or stream-of-consciousness, perhaps), with Zajc’s cascading notes fashioning endless glistening tessellations and varicoloured purling starbursts, only to instantly divert, warp and shift, dancing on the bubbling currents of Zajc’s inspiration like so many audacious skipping stones.
And yet, despite the reinvigorating rush of this constant renewal, nothing on Introducing feels hurried or tentative. The cumulative power of this landmark release allows Zajc to reveal the clues to her gnostic codes in daringly reflecvtive increments, allowing the listener to gradually acclimatise themselves to the music’s protean riddle.
Returning once more to that precious lens, with undaunted vision and dazzlingly versatile technique, Zajc preserves the perpetual flux of her restless moods, modes and ideas in a musical aspic, as each evolving pattern, phrase and individual tone inhabits its own delightful Proustian microcosm for one more illustrious moment, occasionally blown up to billboard proportions, to be held in perpetuity¼ single precious seconds lasting in a parallel infinitude.

Music by Rebeka Rusjan Zajc

CD1 Piano Opera I. — Fictus
Recorded at Power Sound Studio in Amsterdam on November 21st 2023 by Paul Pouwer | Mix and Master by Dave Darlington.
Produced by Dré A. Hočevar | Executive production by Pedro Costa | Design by Travassos | Piano preparation and tuning by Danilo Cosucci

CD2 Piano Opera II. — Functio
Recorded at Power Sound Studio in Amsterdam on January 23rd 2024 by Joris Wolff | Mix and Master by Dave Darlington.
Produced by Dré A. Hočevar | Executive production by Pedro Costa | Design by Travassos | Piano preparation and tuning by Danilo Cosucci

CD3 Piano Opera III. — Factum
Recorded at Power Sound Studio in Amsterdam on September 19th 2023 by Joris Wolff | Mix and Master by Dave Darlington.
Produced by Dré A. Hočevar | Executive production by Pedro Costa | Design by Travassos | Piano preparation and tuning by Danilo Cosucci

CD4 Piano Opera IV. — Fabula
Recorded at Power Sound Studio in Amsterdam on February 27th 2024 by Paul Pouwer | Mix and Master by Dave Darlington.
Produced by Dré A. Hočevar | Executive production by Pedro Costa | Design by Travassos | Piano preparation and tuning by Danilo Cosucci

CD5 Piano Opera V. — Furor
Recorded at Power Sound Studio in Amsterdam on February 27th 2024 by Paul Pouwer | Mix and Master by Dave Darlington.
Produced by Dré A. Hočevar | Executive production by Pedro Costa | Design by Travassos | Piano preparation and tuning by Danilo Cosucci