Composer and Conductor John Williams turns eighty today. To help him celebrate, the Boston Pops, an orchestra with whom he’s long been associated, has created a “choose your favorite theme” webpage.

It includes Soundcloud embeddable widgets for some of Williams’s most famous film music themes, such as:

My theme is the March from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” by Boston Pops


My theme is the Main Theme from “Star Wars” by Boston Pops


and let’s not forget:


My theme is the Theme from “Jaws” by Boston Pops

Soundcloud widgets can be shared via blogs, web pages, and most social media platforms, and the Boston Pops is glad to have fans of film music join in the celebration by streaming these excerpts.

Dark UrrrU/Waterfinder - cassette split (via the sadly now defunct Peasant Magik): A generous helping of drones, post-psych reverberations, spoken word and caterwauling from Portland, Maine supergroup.

Caldera Lakes - “arranged” (via Ecstatic Peace): see Sunday’s review.

Long Distance Poison – The Shores of Titan: free download via their Soundcloud page (thanks to Steve Smith for the tip!)

Sharon Van Etten – Tramp (Out this week via Jagjaguwar). Her last album was indeed Epic; and this one has breakout hit all over it. Check out L Magazine’s article on Sharon: she’s interviewed by Wye Oak’s vocalist Jenn Wasner.

Sharon Van Etten

Tim Berne - Snakeoil (ECM Records): Also out this week, alto saxophonist Tim Berne’s most “chamber music”  flavored foray to date. Ches Smith, Oscar Norieaga, and Matt Mitchell join Berne on his first studio recording in years, creating supple, dynamic, and adventurous renditions of a set of new original compositions.

Johann Johannsson - The Miners’ Hymns (FatCat): From February 8-14 at Film Forum on West Houston Street in NYC, there will be screenings of Bill Morrison’s film The Miners’ Hymns: a portrait of the inexorable winds of change that beset a British mining town, forever changing its residents’ way of life. The score was released last year, but its evocative mixture of organ, brass ensemble, and string textures is well worth revisiting, even sans Morrison’s touching cinematography.

The Marble Vanity has a new 7″ single (on now on Slow Fizz via Drag City). You can sample a sunny psych-pop track via the embed below from their Bandcamp page below.

The Israeli Chamber Project performs at Weill Hall on Wednesday, Feb. 1. In addition to warhorses of the chamber music repertoire by Brahms and Shostakovich, the group performs two Twentieth Century pieces that are less frequently heard on New York stages as well as one from the cusp of the millenium, Night Time (2000), a duo by Sebastian Currier.

Below is a video of the ensemble performing Matam Porat’s “Night Horses” at a 2008 concert in Tel Aviv: an evocative and unerringly paced work that they play superlatively.

The Israeli Chamber Project Carnegie Hall Debut

February 1, 2012 at 7:30 pm

Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall

Shostakovich Trio for Piano, Violin, and Cello in C minor, Op. 8

Sebastian Currier Night Time for Harp and Violin

Martinů Chamber Music No. 1

Paul Ben Haim Three Songs Without Words (arranged for clarinet and harp)

Brahms Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano in A minor, Op. 114

Tibi Cziger, clarinet

Michal Korman, cello

Sivan Magen, harp

Sergey Tarashansky, viola

Assaff Weisman, piano

Itamar Zorman, violin

Tickets: $30, $20, $15 carnegiehall.org/CarnegieCharge 212-247-7800/

Box Office at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue

Last weekend, mezzo-soprano Megan Ihnen and violinist Joseph Kneer premiered a new version of “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” (2011) on the Federal Hill Parlor Series. They are going to perform the piece again on Saturday in York, Pennsylvania. Below is a YouTube video of the 1/25 performance  (the first I’m aware of that features one of my compositions).

From Bora Yoon's "Weights and Balances." Photo: Julia Frodahl

Many of us waited with bated breath during the recent breakdown of talks between management and the orchestra at NYC Opera. Even though the season is proceeding, the company’s plan to keep themselves afloat (if not artistically viable) seems dubious at best. No music director, draconian cuts for the players and chorus, and no base of operations. Instead NYCO will present a truncated season at several venues. After hearing how shabbily the company has treated its employees – while George Steel continues to make in excess of $300,000 – why would they expect their audience to follow them around town? It portends difficult days to come for opera – and opera goers – in the city. Take nothing away from the Metropolitan (although its recent conductor troubles are noteworthy): but a city with New York’s operatic history would seem to have room for more than one major company.

Fortunately, as Zachary Woolfe points out in a recent excellent article in the NY Times, several smaller companies are attempting to fill the void left by City Opera’s vicissitudes. Opera Omnia, Gotham Chamber Opera, DiCapo Opera, and others are making it possible to hear a plethora of works from the repertoire that are unlikely to be programmed any time soon, either at the Met or languishing NYCO: baroque gems, less known Mozart, neglected bel canto, and the like. The remaining challenge, and it’s a daunting one, is to nurture operas by living composers.

To further the efforts of those working towards that end, three longtime champions of contemporary works – HERE’s Kim Whitener and Artistic Director Kristin Marting and Beth Morrison of Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) – have recently announced a promising new venture. Prototype: Opera/Theatre/Now, a festival that they plan to be an annual event, debuts in January 2013.

Unlike NYCO, Prototype will have a single performance venue, HERE’s space in Soho, for which they will try to build an audience. And, also unlike City Opera, the festival, with steady hands at the rudder, will pursue a coherent artistic vision, presenting chamber operas in the contemporary classical/post-classical vein. Some of the names being mentioned as participants in the Prototypes‘s initial presentations should be familiar to those who’ve attended recent editions of VOX: David T. Little, Byron Au Yong, and Bora Yoon.

Dare we hope for an open call for proposals for new chamber operas? More information about Prototype as it’s available.

Long Distance Poison

Gamma Graves

Ecstatic Peace Cassette

Gamma Graves is a prime example of the kind of release that has helped to fuel the cassette resurgence on the indie/experimental music scene. Produced by a variety of sources, from bedroom DIY collectives and small tape-only labels to established imprints like Ecstatic Peace, the audio cassette format, long thought extinct, is back. Tapes have been unassumingly encroaching their way onto the shelves of connoisseur collectors and music critics (no less than Steve Smith is a devotee): even record sellers such as Insound and Other Music have made room for them again.

The Brooklyn triumvirate of synthesizer performers Nathan Cearley and Erica Bradbury and prepared guitarist Casey Block comprise Long Distance Poison. Armed with vintage gear by Moog, Arp, and Roland, they create experimental soundscapes with a sense of history, referencing everyone from David Borden and early Philip Glass to Keith Rowe, Alva Noto, Ryoji Ikeda, and Derek Bailey. Drone-based foundations are overlaid with coruscating ostinato loops and distressed with pointed interjections.

Gamma Graves is the type of music that would have been just fine to distribute digitally (or via CD). Indeed, some purists might argue that cassette is an inherently inferior audio format to hi-res digital played through good equipment (by no means do most consumers play their MP3s through good equipment). So, why do I like having it on cassette? I find the noise imparted by tape and deck to do no harm to this music: in fact, it adds another, subtle, layer of drones to the proceedings that is consonant with the musical intentions of the work.

The tape as artifact yields something important too. Limited runs of handmade cassettes are often lovingly attired with artwork more expansive and, obviously, more tangible than any JPEG can provide. They are a reminder of a bygone era in which the physical release WAS the release, in which tape-trading and digging in bins for rarities was a hobby to enthusiastically pursue: not something simulated in online forums and furtively grasped at brick and mortar outposts now few and far between. Long Distance Poison (and Ecstatic Peace) acknowledge their debt to history not only via musical reference points, but through the resonances found in a cassette as relic and artwork. Try finding all that in a computer file.

Steve Hackett
Beyond the Shrouded Horizon
Inside Out Music

Guitarist Steve Hackett may be best known for his work with early Genesis in the 1970s and participation in the 80s rock super group GTR, in which he played alongside Yes guitarist Steve Howe. But for over thirty years, he has had a distinguished solo career, releasing a number of exquisitely wrought recordings with a variety of collaborators. Those who are “in” on the existence of this impressive catalog might wish that it had less of a cult status, as that’s what would befit much of Hackett’s output from a qualitative standpoint. However, remaining slightly below the mainstream’s radar has had had a fortunate byproduct. Hackett has been able to avoid the pressures of mainstreaming and homogenizing his records’s content, a fate that has befallen far too many prog legends once the A&R people got their way. Instead, Hackett has happily explored eclectic music-making; work that encompasses prog rock epics, synth-haloed alt pop songwriting, blues-inflected electric guitar shredding, pastoral neo-folk ballads, and crossover classical compositions played on nylon string guitar. Sometimes all of these approaches appear on the same album.

Beyond the Shrouded Horizon, Hackett’s most recent studio release, epitomizes this eclecticism. Yet, amid all this variety, it is a musically cohesive and engaging recording. The principle reason: Hackett’s singular creative vision remains crystal clear and his chops and voice are both in sterling shape. Fans of the guitarist’s progressive rock catalog will warm to “Loch Lomond” and the twelve minute epic “Turn This Island Earth;” the latter features guest bassist Chris Squire (of Yes). Squire also provides a contrapuntal bass part on symphonic prog song “Looking for Fantasy,” and lays down a sepulchral groove on “Catwalk,” a roiling blues-rock number that showcases Hackett’s soloing at its most hot-blooded. Amanda Lehman lends nimble vocals to three songs, while John Hackett duets with Steve on the pastoral psych pop piece “Between the Sunset and the Coconut Palms.” Longtime collaborator Roger King provides beautiful synth textures and keyboard playing throughout.

Hackett’s two brief acoustic guitar solo compositions, “Wanderlust” and “Summer’s Breath,” are tantalizing palette cleansers: one would love to hear them in expanded incarnations. For those wanting a concise “single-worthy” pop song, complete with Beatles-esque harmonic shifts and supple string arrangements, Hackett supplies “Til These Eyes.” Yes, Beyond the Shrouded Horizon is a stylistically omnivorous collection; but one that maintains high musical standards throughout.

After finishing school, New England Conservatory of Music graduates find all sorts of ways to collaborate together: orchestras, recording sessions, chamber music, etc. Members of the indie band Cuddle Magic met while studying at NEC. They’ve taken the classical chops they honed in Boston and brought them into a hybridized chamber pop scenario that owes as much of a debt to Steve Reich and Moondog as it does to Beirut and Animal Collective.

Now based in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, Cuddle Magic is preparing Info Nympho, its third CD, for release on FYO Records. It combines classical instrumentation with a penchant for 80s keyboards (including the vintage Casio seen in the video below), whimsical toy instruments, and honey-sweet vocal harmonies.





Much of this is captured in the close-miked immediacy of apartment recording. But the band has also been recording at Old Soul Studio in the Catskills, enlisting the help of toy pianist extraordinaire Phyllis Chen (video below). They also guested on Chen’s recent Uncaged Toy Piano Festival. Both Chen and Cuddle Magic are able to re-purpose unorthodox materials to create music that employs a light touch, but is never lightweight.





Courtesy of the band, here’s a free download of album track Moby Dickless.

Xiu Xiu’s next CD, Always, is out 3/6 via Polyvinyl. The band is offering the record’s lead-off single, “Hi,” for free download on their Soundcloud page.


Hi by Xiu Xiu