This in from Nadia Sirota and the gang at WQXR’s Q2:
Listen in to Q2 now through Sunday toJacobTV on the Radio: a 5-day celebration of the omnivorous creative world of the game-changing Dutch composer, JacobTV. Festival features include:
JacobTV as DJ, introducing many of his seminal works (full archival versions to 20+ pieces available on-demand)
Full on-demand concert audio from Ethel Plays JacobTV: a recent New Sounds Live performance from Merkin Concert Hall with the string quartet Ethel
Hours of rare, never-before-heard recordings from live concerts and private recordings
Videos from upcoming pieces, recent collaborations, documentaries, and live performances
A limited time download of his break-through Grab it! inspired by the documentary Scared Straight!
One of the great losses of 2009 was guitarist Jack Rose, who passed away in December. Thrill Jockey Records has released his final album, Luck in the Valley, posthumously.
Rose’s early career is most often associated with his work in the experimental folk/drone outfit Pelt. His solo albums came later, and evinced a wider array of influences, keeping his interest in drone in the mix, but adding ragtime, raga, and blues styles as well.
Luck in the Valley is a fitting, if premature, valedictory statement, encompassing Rose’s wide-ranging interests and featuring some truly beautiful performances. It includes lustrous dronescapes such as the title composition, a raga-inflected “Blues for Percy Danforth,” and a more authentically bluesy sounding rendition of W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues.”
Fans of Robbie Basho, John Fahey, and Stephen Basho-Junghans will recognize a kindred spirit in Rose, and regret that he will not be around longer to truly inherit the alt-folk acoustic guitar crown.
Seven Fields of Aphelion
Periphery
Graveface Records CD
Periphery
It may not be the most economical stage name to adopt, but keyboardist Seven Fields of Aphelion certainly makes up for it with graceful compositions. Her debut CD is a departure of sorts from the type of music she plays with the group Black Moth Super Rainbow. Rather than trippy/glitchy electronica, Periphery adopts a more ambient demeanor. Vintage synthesizers and piano blend together in a number of lush, slowly unfolding instrumentals.
Elsewhere, as on “Mountain Mary,” she adopts a spacy minimalism, crafting triadic oscillations into a busily supple, sci-fi tinged canvas.
All too often, side projects can be seen as one-dimensional affairs. Happily, Periphery gives listeners a sense of SFoA as a compelling solo artist in her own right, while occasionally allowing us glimpses into the extent of her contributions to Black Moth Super Rainbow.
Happy Birthday’s debut LP is out tomorrow (3/16) on Sub Pop. But in the spirit of ‘try it before you buy it,’ The label’s been generous enough to share the entire album with us in the streaming player below.
Aloha’s new LP, Home Acres, is now out on Polyvinyl.
I’ve long been a fan of the band. Way back in 2000, Steve Brydges of Copper Pressturned me on to their debut LP, That’s Your Fire (also on Polyvinyl and well with worth seeking out!)
Back in 2000, Aloha often created a boisterous noise. Part of their sonic signature included copious vibraphone flurries, matched by experimental rock guitars and mathy time signatures.
Over the years, Aloha’s sound became more layered and progressive in presentation. One hesitates to say that their sound has mellowed, exactly; indeed Home Acres includes some of their most rocking music in a while. Mallet instruments remain an important part of their music-making; but on Home Acres, its often the marimba that takes center stage rather than vibraphone. Here mallet instruments and other post-rock gestures are integrated parts of the whole, rather than noticeable mannerisms. Â And while there are catchy hooks aplenty, Aloha’s rightly vaunted instrumental passages are still given enough time to develop.
All in all, Home Acres is an excellent addition to their catalog.
For those who like to ‘try before they buy,’ Spinner is streaming the album in its entirety here.
Brooklyn Vegan has also posted a couple of songs for download here.
ETHEL Quartet’s forthcoming release (June 2010, Thunderbird Records) chronicles their series of collaborations with eleven young composers from the Chickasaw nation; the first-ever recording of Native American student composers.
Q2 has posted podcasts about the recording project here, providing a preview and some context for this fascinating endeavor.
Over the years, Ethel has engaged in a number collaborations with Native American musicians. Here’s a video of them performing with Navajo singer James Bilagody.
The Kronos Quartet is in residence at Carnegie Hall this week from Mar. 11-14, presenting four concerts in Zankel Hall and mentoring emerging string quartets.
I’m writing about their 3/11 concert for Musical America. Devoted entirely to the music of Terry Riley, it featured a number of new works by one of the founding fathers of the minimalist school of composition.
On Sunday I’ll be attending Kronos’ Music Without Borders concert, which features guest performers Dohee Lee (Korea), rubâb master Homayoun Sakhi (Afghanistan), and Azerbaijani mugam performers Alim and Fargana Qasimov. The latter artists also perform on Kronos’ latest recording for Smithsonian Folkways, Music of Central Asia, Volume Eight (CD/DVD).
Duo for alto saxophone and piano (2009) had its beginnings in an earlier work for alto flute and piano. Substantially reworked and revised to better suit the sax, it still retains the same core compositional goals. Certain gestures – trills, angular melodies, and widely spaced arpeggiations – are set against more conjunctly articulated lines and stacked verticals. This gestural vocabulary evolves in its juxtapositions throughout the piece, providing a variety of vantage points. A plausible non-musical analog to its structure might be gradually unfolding an abundantly contoured map. (World Premiere, William Paterson University, 4/21/10)
Swedenborg Variations for violin and piano (2010) takes as its jumping off point my recent fascination with the works of 19th Century landscape painter George Inness. In 2008, I wrote a trio (for clarinet, viola, and piano) based on his painting Sunset (1893). In addition to a series of musical reflections on this enigmatic and inspiring artwork, I also incorporated aspects of his working methods and artistic philosophy into my making of the piece. The latter concern drew heavily on both the writings of the Transcendentalists and on a spiritual approach to making art that reflected the tenets of Swedenborgianism. The violin-piano variations are a reworking of the last movement of the trio in a duo context, re-envisioned to better suit the virtuosic capabilities of both instruments. (World Premiere, Connecticut College, 5/13/2010)
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