"Percussionist and composer Domen Cizej's vision surpasses the limits of the ordinary. On his debut Introducing Domen Cizej, the Amsterdam-based artist introduces himself in full range. A box set of five albums, each with a different ensemble, message, and power, offers an opportunity to hear Cizej's vision in depth and in totality. The box set opens with the thunder of an eight-member percussion ensemble that can be experienced as a "body in a repetitive coordinated motion, aiming at transcending its own consciousness. It is a ritual that invites one to take part in it," as Cizej himself describes it. The next album, performed by an acoustic jazz piano trio, displays lyricism, beauty, and purity of musical expression. Through an intricate duo interplay with prepared piano and orchestral percussion, and a playful second piano trio, the music brings us to the last album of the box set. On the solo album, Cizej orients us toward the origins of his vision through a sequence of compositions written for voice and drums.

As Joe Morris puts it in the liner notes: "This grand recording erases competing issues of history, influence, and methodology in today's improvised music culture by combining them seamlessly, thereby alleviating the listener of the burden of obsolete analysis. Instead, it offers new music that entices them to enjoy the surprise and pleasure of deciphering an exciting sonic puzzle."-Clean Feed

"This music is a triumphant tour-de-force presented in organic structural configurations, using multiple modes of interaction. It plays like an epic piece of continuous invention that can be enjoyed with focused attention or as an expansive atmosphere. Domen Cizej who was born in Slovenia in 1996 has a mastery that is ultra-contemporary. He and his colleagues present a perfect inaudible blend of composition and improvisation. They perform with impeccable, rigorous precision and expressive control of density and sustain, using silence to generate energy, making music that evokes both the wind blowing through the forest, and the indecipherable chatter of a crowd of people. Much of it is rendered in speech-cadence-like phrases in particles of every duration, done with a profound degree of unpredictability. Every piece employs a seemingly unlimited variation of tone, frequency, pitch, and dynamics to make richly melodic music that also consistently highlights the beauty of pure sound. This grand recording erases competing issues of history, influence, and methodology in today's improvised music culture by combining them seamlessly, thereby alleviating the listener of the burden of obsolete analysis. Instead it offers new music that entices them to enjoy the surprise and pleasure of deciphering an exciting sonic puzzle."-Joe Morris, March 2023