THE extraordinary pianist Sophie Agnel plays “prepared piano,” or as she prefers to call it, “extended piano,” where the strings and innards of the instrument have equal sonic and percussive importance with the external keyboard, provoked by altering the conventional sound by placing bolts, screws, rubber erasers, plastic balls and a host of other objects over and between the strings. As she stands over the open piano frame, she becomes as a surgeon of sound.

“I was born in Paris in 1964,” she says, “the year of the Jacques Demy film, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. My mother was a singer in the Radio France Choir. My father was also a musician, but more of an academic. He taught sound recording at L’Hidec, a famous film school. We had a piano at home and I was interested in it as soon as I could stand up — so my parents sent me for private lessons.

“At home there was a Duke Ellington record I listened to a lot, of his 1927-31 orchestra. I discovered Artie Whetsel’s trumpet and a world of incredible, fat, joyful and innovative sounds. I was about 20 when I first heard the Montreal pianist Paul Bley. I was captivated. I listened to everything he recorded and saw him live in concert when he came to Paris. It was through him that everything began for me.

“I played classical, then jazz, passing through many varieties of music. I listened a lot to Monk, Ornette, Beethoven’s piano sonatas and Bach. I was about 20 when I started improvising and playing the way I do now.”

How did she first “extend” her piano? 

“I don’t remember when I first put something inside my piano. I wanted to alter the sound sometimes, without it being definitive. The first thing I put inside was a plastic goblet. I’d seen a few pianists do it: Fred Van Hove, for example, put balls inside his. But what didn’t appeal to me was that there seemed to be no link between the piano’s outside and inside. I sought to play the whole piano without really being aware of it, without a boundary between the frame and the keyboard.”

Her trio album Aqisseq with two Englishmen, bassist John Edwards and drummer Steve Noble, recorded at the Brighton Alternative Jazz Festival in 2016, expresses her wish with brilliant abandon. The aqisseq is a medium-sized bird of the grouse family, a rock ptarmigan found in Greenland. It’s also the official bird of the Inuit Canadian territory of Nunavut.

“My photographer sister Juliette took photos of the aqisseq in Greenland. I chose the sleeve photo of the bird whose head was all that was left — hung on a wire by hunters who had eaten the rest. When I heard a recording of the bird’s cry, I thought I heard our trio, so I didn’t hesitate for a second. The call is introduced towards the record’s end.”

How did she first combine with Edwards and Noble? “I asked them to play with me after I heard them in a trio with Lol Coxhill. I was extremely impressed by their powerful rhythms and incredible groove. When we played together, I was surprised — they played differently, much more abstract. They’re great musicians.

“They hear everything and react very, very quickly. It’s not a piano accompanied by a rhythm section. We’re enriching each other.

“The music is alive and contains all the tensions, the harshness of the world and vice-versa. We play with everything we are and everything that goes through us.”

With the piano “extended” in its guts by cups of water, foil ashtrays, bouncing plastic balls, nylon fishing line, bolts, screws, erasers, with Noble’s rampaging drums and Edwards slamming, striking, plucking and stroking his bass, are there not three percussionists drumming all through the album?

“I don’t know,” replies Agnel. “I don't ask myself that question. Of course, the piano is also a percussive instrument and I like that, but I also believe that the drummer and bassist play like pianists and the three of us are a multitude of instruments.”

Plus a distant Arctic bird which flew once to Brighton, who in the words of Philippe de Jonckheere’s sleeve poem squawks back its words: “Can't beat that!”

The aqisseq knows, that’s for sure!

Agisseq is released by ONJ Records.