"What Matthew Shipp has done on The Piano Equation is a profound achievement. He has distilled his piano style into something sharp and distinct-very possibly the most concise and cogent statement of his pianistic sensibility. Shipp has demonstrated how free improvisation can produce results that get right to the essence without almost any wasted notes. And he has made a recording that seems comparable in the best ways to things like Keith Jarrett's early Facing You or Chick Corea's Piano Improvisations Volume 1. But the album is also more dazzling for being wholly improvised and for merging and engaging romantic piano sensibility with both more harmonically dissonant playing and the knotty patterns and concepts that are original to Shipp himself. This is a recital to stand the test of time"