Vijay Iyer

May 4, 2015, NPR Tiny Desk. Vijay IyerVijay Iyerヴィジェイ・アイヤー Trio. Iyer's distinctive pianistic voice — mathematical structure coexisting with improvisational fluidity.

— NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert, 2015

The opening track of Uneasy, "Children of Flint," was written in response to the Michigan city's water crisis. In JazzTimes, Vijay IyerVijay Iyerヴィジェイ・アイヤー said the bass ostinato is deliberately offset by a semitone on its repeats, translating the feeling of a lifeline going crooked into pure sound.

— Vijay Iyer Trio: Uneasy and the Politics of Time, JazzTimes, 2021

Marcus GilmoreMarcus Gilmoreマーカス・ギルモア, who grew up as the grandson of Roy Haynes, was the longtime drummer in Vijay IyerVijay Iyerヴィジェイ・アイヤー's trio. As Iyer acknowledged in JazzTimes, the intricate meters of Accelerando (2012) and Break Stuff (2015) were written outward from Gilmore's study of Indian tala.

— Vijay Iyer Trio: Uneasy and the Politics of Time, JazzTimes, 2021

A drummer best known as Roy Haynes's grandson, Gilmore anchored the Vijay Iyer Trio with bassist Stephan Crump and performed on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert in May 2015, playing pieces including selections from Break Stuff.

— Vijay Iyer Trio: Tiny Desk Concert, NPR Music, 2015

"I began not from symmetry of instrumentation, but from rhythmic asymmetry."

On the compositional process of Uneasy (2021).