Press archive
What was written and broadcast about Harry Pepl: reviews, portraits, interviews and obituaries, with summary and source. The originals are protected by copyright and kept in the archive; we provide them to researchers and the press on request.
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9 June 2024 · Review
Instagram (@ecm_vinylcollector): „Cracked Mirrors“ (Pepl/Joos/Christensen, ECM 1356)
Short review of “Cracked Mirrors” on the Instagram account of an ECM (the renowned European jazz label) collector. The album, it says, is the most idiosyncratic of the ECM records of its time and hard to classify; Pepl breaks the material into a thousand pieces.
If you're Harry Pepl, you bust it into a thousand pieces and shoot it into the ether.
Cracked Mirrors … is easily the oddest of the bunch, a nearly unclassifiable record.
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18 December 2017 · Review
Guitar Moderne (Online): „Harry Pepl: The One That Almost Got Away“
guitar moderne
Short piece in the American online magazine for adventurous guitarists. The author discovered Pepl in 1986 on the ECM (the renowned European jazz label) album “Volver” by Enrico Rava and Dino Saluzzi: his sound recalled Metheny, but with a harder attack and a freer sensibility. He recommends “Cracked Mirrors”, which still sounds fresh today.
His chorused sound and fluidity were reminiscent of Metheny, but his attack was harder and his sensibility was decidedly more “out.”
Check out “Cracked Mirror” to hear how his playing in 1988 sounds fresh even today.
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25 November 2017 · Review · JA
ジャズCDの個人ページ ECM Blog (kudoecm.blog.jp): „Cracked Mirrors/Harry Pepl(G, G Synth, P)/Herbert Joos(Flh)/Jon Christensen(Ds)(ECM 1356)“
kudojazz
Review on the Japanese blog “ジャズCDの個人ページ ECM Blog” (roughly “Personal jazz CD page, ECM blog”), on which the author kudojazz discusses the records of the renowned European jazz label ECM by catalogue number. He lists the recording of February 1987 with Harry Pepl (guitar, guitar synthesizer, piano), the German flugelhorn player Herbert Joos and the Norwegian drummer Jon Christensen, and notes that six of the eight pieces are by Pepl and two (“Wolkenbilder 1” and “Wolkenbilder 2”) by Joos. In his view the album combines passages that sound like free improvisation with pastoral ones, and depending on the piece the Roland MIDI guitar system creates a synthesizer-like expanse. On Pepl’s pieces he notes distinctly free traits with fine riffs and broad synthesizer textures in “Reflections in a Cracked Mirror”, a small ballad with a gentle flugelhorn melody in “Schikaneder Delight”, plenty of space and freedom in “Die alte Mär und das Mann”, very fast, mechanical free playing in “More Far Out Than East”, a melody floating above the jagged guitar in “Purple Light” and a calm, piano-led melody in “Tintenfisch Inki”.
There are passages that sound like free improvisation and passages that are pastoral.
kudojazz on his Japanese blog about ECM records, on “Cracked Mirrors” (ECM 1356, recorded in February 1987) with Herbert Joos and Jon Christensen
Depending on the piece, the Roland MIDI guitar system creates a synthesizer-like expanse.
kudojazz on the sound of Pepl’s Roland MIDI guitar system on “Cracked Mirrors” (ECM 1356, 1987)
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22 April 1988 · Review · DE
daily newspaper (title not preserved): „Glanzvolle Dreieinigkeit“
Robert Urman
Review of the concert at the Posthof in Linz: the new trinity around Harry Pepl with Herbert Joos and Jon Christensen. Urman describes breathtaking string artistry, birdsong and synthetic flute sounds, lovingly coloured poetry down to a hint of Gil Evans, and an electronically generated fullness of sound on an orchestral scale. On the day of publication, a Friday, the trio was still playing at the Hotel Mader in Katsdorf.
Gems of contemporary jazz, wittily crafted by a top-class trio
The three offered breathtaking string artistry, virtuosically realised visions of wilful electronic mobilisation
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April 1988 · Review · DE
daily newspaper (title not preserved): „Versierte Gefährten“ (Musikantendreieck der Extraklasse im Posthof)
-a-
Concert review of the appearance of Harry Pepl with Jon Christensen and Herbert Joos at the Posthof in Linz on 20 April 1988. The author praises the intensity, sensuality and sharpness of the compositions, the compellingly played solos and the astonishing use of electronics, and announces the trio’s forthcoming ECM (the renowned European jazz label) record. With a photo by Nöbauer.
Austrian jazz’s guitar great, of a standing that helps to set the tone not only in Europe
Harry Pepl brings electronics into play in an astonishing way.