Formed just a year ago, New York-based quartet Asa Ransom are receiving raves for live shows throughout the five boroughs. Their brand of indie rock combines some of David Bryne’s vocal mannerisms, adds an extra portion of New Wave jangly guitars, and exudes a splash of experimental whimsy. A debut recording, An Asa Ransom Release, is slated for April, ’09, and is very promising.
The alert ostinati of “Crystal†and “Island†offset catchy choruses. Yelping vocals on “Strangeways Pale in Splendor†are underpinned by an undulating bass figure and proggy keyboards. In addition to having an irresistible title, “Man with Tuba and Wife†displays musical wit; piling an amalgam of 80s signifiers into a delightful, ebullient jumble. Â
While his regular gig is as keyboardist for the Hold Steady, Franz Nicolay makes a compelling case for his work as a solo act on Major General.  “This World is an Open Door†and “Quiet Where I Lie†provide a badly needed update to the Springsteen model of arena rock. He’s brash and occasionally profane on “Confessions of a Failed Casanova,†leading a high-octane band through spirited choruses. “Hey Dad†incorporates banjo and Hammond organ into the proceedings, unveiling a more multi-faceted arranging style. Â
Although the energetic rockers are stirring, it’s also nice to hear Nicolay forge different musical pathways. A case in point is “Do we Not Live in Dreams,†where, accompanied by a swinging clarinet solo, he adopts a breezy, jazz pop style a lá Mose Allison (although, ironically, with guitar as the comping instrument instead of piano). Like Billy Joel, he’s able to channel Chopinesque piano textures into a rock context, demonstrating this to good effect on the emotive “Dead Sailors.†Nicolay is as talented as he is versatile.
Papers from the December ‘08 Elliott Carter Conference at IRCAM in Paris are being broadcast on Radio France. My paper on the late concerti, as well as Francois Nicolas’s paper on Night Fantasies, are being broadcast today (listen here).
I’ve long been enamored with pianist Steven Lantner’s playing. His interest in microtones, post-tonal harmony, and injecting swing into a free jazz context put him right up my alley. His current quartet, with saxophonist Allan Chase, bassist Joe Morris, and drummer Luther Gray, contains kindred musical spirits, able to interweave flights of freedom with a disciplined sensibility of interplay.
The second Lantner Quartet CD, Given – Live in Münster, presents a wonderful concert from the 21st International Jazzfest Münster. Like one of my favorite concert music composers, Elliott Carter, Lantner and company currently use the all-interval tetrachord (0146) to circumscribe their harmonic language. This imparts Given with a coherent, piquant sound world amidst its free jazz gestures and open form improvisations.
Chase combines beautiful, floating lines with blustery flurried arpeggiations. Lantner’s soloing has grown as well. He’s masterful at shifting gears; moving from sostenuto chords to postbop swinging lines to Stravinskyian post-tonal fragments on the turn of a dime. Morris and Gray get their solo turns as well, responding with creative, zesty punctuations to the proceedings. Given is a wonderful musical present.
Probably most familiar for his work in the electronica group Jaga Jazzist, Norwegian composer Lars Horntveth is also active in projects that incorporate classical instrumentation. His latest ‘solo’ CD, Kaleidoscopic, uses the Latvian National Orchestra as its principal performers. Their acoustic instruments are altered and reframed using techniques from Horntveth’s alt-electronic background. The CD has already received acclaim abroad – it’s been nominated for the Norwegian equivalent of the Grammy. The recording is released here in the US on Tuesday.
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Unusual even for concert music CDs, the material is presented as a single track, 37 minutes long. However, its title is apt, as the kaleidoscopic nature of the material means that there are several subsections, each presenting a different shade of the constant sonic argumentation between machine-made and acoustic sounds.
Horntveth’s music is attractively appointed, incorporating minimalist techniques common both to contemporary concert music and IDM loops. The confluence of these two traditions and the episodic nature of the score would be dangerous stumbling blocks for many a composer. But Kaleidoscopic is a skillfully crafted, appealing creation.
Last month I wrote about the puzzling qualities of Jandek’s debut LP:
“For the uninitiated, Jandek’s debut LP Ready for the House, reissued on high-quality vinyl to greet the recent turntable resurgence, may at first seem a bit puzzling. Much of the record involves a solo artist strumming a single, cacophonously out-of-tune chord on an acoustic guitar, singing in a keening manner. If one gets past the initial challenges posed by the surface, there is a lot going on. One can hear analogies between Jandek’s ‘mis-tuned’ guitar and some of the microtonality found in acoustic Delta blues by artists such as Robert Johnson and Leadbelly. On the other hand, its slowly but constantly shifting arpeggiated deployment recalls the abstract expressionist musical structures of Feldman and Wolff; composers who reduced the number of materials in operation at any given moment, but made myriad minor shifts; allowing listeners’ perception of these reduced means to evolve over the course of the work.”
Fast forward ahead nearly thirty years. Jandek has made over fifty recordings, becoming a cult legend with an ardent underground following. Brooklyn Wednesday captures a 2005 live event on two DVDs, and we see a fleshed-out version of Ready for the House’s initial concept. It’s worth noting that this is just one year after the end of a decade-long self-imposed exile from live performing and most collaboration. Backed by a youthful rhythm section (bassist Matt Heyner and drummer Chris Corsano), the artist plays brash electric guitar, accompanying fragile, evocative vocals. Here, the microtonal tunings and concomitant singing ‘between the cracks,’ and the pungent, slowly evolving harmonies, are set against a lively, free rhythmic underpinning. Thus, it resonates with the No-Wave/noise rock aesthetic; all the while presenting a more uncompromising performance demeanor. More hermetic perhaps than Glenn Branca or SY, Jandek is a fascinating, singular presence in ‘outer limits’ music-making.
Elliott Carter: A Centennial Portrait in Letters and Documents, by Felix Meyer and Anne Shreffler. Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 2008.
Elliott Carter turned 100 on 11 December 2008, bringing to a close a marathon year of festivals, performances, recordings, and publications celebrating his centenary. When asked about whether he enjoyed all the fuss, Carter’s stock reply was, “No one likes to be reminded of their age, but I’d be disappointed if it wasn’t happening.†And he worked for his birthday cake! Carter provided several new compositions for the festivities in 2008, including his first choral piece in over six decades, a work for percussion ensemble, and Interventions, his fourth piece for solo piano and orchestra. Â
It’s probably safe to say that A Centennial Portrait is the first ‘coffee-table book’ about a modern American concert music composer. A hefty 352 pages, its presentation is exquisite; with large, readable score excerpts and composer sketches, re-typed portions of personal correspondence, handwritten missives, and telling rehearsal notes. There are also a number of engaging letters written to the composer from a veritable who’s who of 20/21 music. Sketches for compositions from throughout Carter’s career – from early works such as Minotaur and the First String Quartet to his recent Boston Concerto, Mosaic, and hot-off-the-presses Mad Regales – offer insights into the genesis and evolution of his working methods and styles. Equally tantalizing are the abandoned projects: a sonata for two pianos from the 50s; a projected second opera from 2001.
Sometimes an example does double-duty. For example, the autograph for Steep Steps, a solo bass clarinet piece written in 2002, includes a note from Carter to Virgil Blackwell, its dedicatee and a member of the composer’s inner circle: “Virgil – How about this? Elliott.â€
In order to compile the volume, Felix Meyer and Anne Shreffler have done extensive research at the archives of the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, Switzerland, where most of Carter’s papers are kept. One might think that the sketches and biographical material of a composer whose work has received intense scrutiny might not yield too many surprises. But the authors have provided fresh material to whet the appetites of Carterians, while simultaneously creating an accessible volume that is an excellent overview of Carter’s first hundred years.
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Mountains is an instrumental unit, but their latest for Thrill Jockey, Choral, isn’t as mistitled as it first might seem. The instrumentation may be that of a post-rock unit, but the textures they adopt resemble the four-part writing so often deployed in vocal ensemble music.
Indeed, Mountains revels in long, sustained harmonies; evoking a wintry soundscape. Sometimes, as on the title track, a single chord will populate the terrain like a seemingly immovable surface – an iceberg of diatonicism. But around it, synthetic undulations and percussive punctuations activate the proceedings, allowing a glacial triad to unmoor, drifting ever so gradually in a beguiling sort of ambient minimalism.
On “Melodica†the sustained pitches are more discrete, linear formations; their gradual convergence as verticals punctuated by cymbal interjections, hued as glassine drips of icicle percussion.  Â
Composed in 1986, just one year before his death, For Christian Wolff is one of Morton Feldman’s late, long masterworks. While briefer than For Philip Guston and String Quartet II, which can take upwards of five hours to perform, For Christian Wolff still clocks in at well over three hours without interruption, making it a daunting enough gauntlet for performers and audience members alike. But on California E.A.R. Unit’s triple disc recording, time seems to stop; one is entranced by the otherworldly sounds Feldman has wrought.
Christian Wolff (b. 1934) was the youngest member of the “New York School.†In the 1950s, along with Feldman, John Cage, and Earl Brown, he helped to forge new musical pathways that explored ground-breaking terrain – aleatory, unconventional structures, noise, silences, and graphic notation among them. Feldman’s homage to Wolff doesn’t make explicit references to the latter’s music. Feldman instead captures the slowly evolving, methodical aspects of Wolff’s hermetic life as a New England academic and transcribes them into an enigmatic score.
Piano, celesta (both played by a single keyboard player), and flute play slowly and softly for the piece’s entire duration, repeating just a few notes at a time – over and over and over again. The intervals formed are curious, spiky dissonances that never resolve conventionally. Despite the piece’s atonality, the prevailing pianissimo dynamic and lack of overt gesture removes any sense of confrontation or drama. Keyboardist Vicki Ray and the much-missed flutist Dorothy Stone (who passed away just last year) have recorded a focused, moving performance of this important and provocative work.
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