CD Reviews

The Stroke that Kills

Seth Josel, electric guitar

New World Records

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Until It Blazes, Eve Beglarian
Strum City I, II, III, Alvin Curran
Slapback, Michael Fiday
The Stroke That Kills, David Dramm
Stoned Guitar/TIG Welder, Gustavo Matamoros
Canon for Six Guitars, Tom Johnson

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Here is what I think: I think that every teenager who walks into a music store and wants to buy their first electric guitar should instead be given a copy of this disc. They are to listen to the disc every day for two weeks. When the time is up, if that youngster doesn’t want to play any/all of the pieces on it, they should not be allowed to buy a guitar.

Seth Josel has programmed tremendous music and played it with conviction, power, and subtlety. Until It Blazes is slow paced and hypnotic. I never knew I could be so enthralled by “sol-me-re-do” but the gentle delay and growing distortion kept me captivated. The three Strum City pieces are just that: continuous strumming over changing amounts of harmony and distortion. My only complaint is that the most energetic work comes first, making the other two less satisfying from a dramatic trajectory perspective. A minor quibble, if you even consider it valid.

Slapback, my favorite work on the disc, is raw and muscular. The improvisatory style walks you through the structure of the piece. It sounds like a King Crimson lick at first but the motive builds, grows, and evolves in extremely satisfying ways. David Dramm’s The Stroke That Kills is an electric adaptation of a guitar trio (all played by Josel) and channels the propulsive nature of Flamenco rhythms.

Gustavo Matamoros wins the prize for the weirdest piece. Stoned Guitar/TIG Welder lives up to the “stoned” moniker (the work requires the guitarist to “With a stone, trace the strings of the guitar slowly from bridge to nut”). Spacey and ambient, the work doesn’t sound much like an electric guitar (which is the point). If Segovia says that the guitar is like an entire orchestra, then Matamoros and Josel show that the electric guitar contains the entire electronic sonic experience. You could hear Genesis P-Orridge singing “Hamburger Lady” over this piece.

Tom Johnson’s Canon is quirky, chunky, and highly segmented. The form of the piece feels the same way as Fiday’s work: the careful working out of material. Johnson’s music, here and elsewhere, is incredibly conscious of craft and fortspinnung. This work is rigorous and stimulating without being pedantic or professorial.

This disc does make me want to instill that “Josel Bill” waiting period on electric guitar purchases. We need more music like this and more performers like Seth Josel.

GOLDSTEIN: Configurations in Darkness; Ishi/timechangingspaces; Ishi/”man waxati” Soundings. Malcolm Goldstein, solo violin; Radu Malfatti, trombone; Philippe Micol, bass clarinet; Philippe Racine, flute; Beat Schneider, violoncello. New World 80676. 69 minutes.

Malcolm Goldstein’s experience as an extraordinary violinist/improviser (or is that “improvising violinist”?) informs every moment of his a sounding of sources disc on New World Records. His playing and composing is vital, visionary, and eminently listenable.

The first piece on the disc is Configurations in Darkness. The first two tracks comprise two performance of this score, part of which is included in the accompanying booklet. The score provides pitch materials and time frames for activities, and the resulting controlled improvisation is a teeming soundworld full of folk references, modernist dissonance, and free-floating expression. Goldstein’s collaborators (Radu Malfatti, trombone, Philippe Micol, bass clarinet, Philippe Racine, flute, and Beat Schneider, cello) are fine musicians, attuned to improvisation and to Goldstein’s musical world.

Ishi/timechangingspaces is an electronic sound collage produced for West German Radio and realized in their Cologne studio. Like many of the classical electronic pieces made in that studio, Goldstein’s piece uses found sounds (here including singing from the last member of the Yahi tribe) to create an expressive soundscape that compels us to listen.

The final work on this disc, Ishi/”man waxati” Soundings, is a reworking of Ishi/timechangingspaces into a controlled improvisation, played by Goldstein himself, with vocal interjections as well as violin sounds. It is a fascinating and expressive rethinking of the electronic work.

Highly recommended.

Johanna Beyer: Sticky Melodies

Suite for Clarinet No. 1
String Quartet No. 1
Three Songs for Clarinet and Soprano
Bees
The Federal Music Project
Movement for Two Pianos
Suite for Clarinet No. 2
String Quartet No. 2
Ballad of the Star-Eater
Movement for Double Bass and Piano
Three pieces for choir
Sonatina in C

Astra Chamber Music Society, John McCaughey, director
New World Records

Johanna Beyer is a composer who has been woefully neglected. As the composer of what many consider to have been the first electronic piece (Music of the Spheres, 1938), it’s amazed me how little one hears of her. I first became enamored with the 1938 work on a landmark LP with new music by women composers, and am delighted that New World Records is making a lot of Beyer’s music available in a recent 2-CD set. The recordings provide a really nice overview of Beyer’s music since 1930 (her pre-1930 music remains unknown). Beyer was a contemporary of Charles and Ruth Crawford Seeger, Henry Cowell and other American “experimentalists” of that era, and her music was very much ahead of its time. She ultimately developed ALS and, along with a worsening relationship with Cowell after his release from prison, made her last years tragic and unfortunate.

Fortunately for us, however, we have these 2 CDs with a good deal of Beyer’s music in extremely sympathetic and skillful performances. Of all the music on the album, the two string quartets particularly stand out. While the fourth movement of String Quartet No. 1 have been described in terms that make it seem proto-minimalist, I’m struck more by its use of repetitive glissandi than its stasis. The string writing reminds me of the one performance I heard years ago of John Becker’s string quartet, another amazing piece that I wish were heard more often (note to performers: I’ll die a lot happier if I could hear the Becker again, it’s that good).

The two works for clarinet solo are gems, as is the piece for contrabass and piano. In fact, all the pieces on these discs are incredible finds, and belong in any new music aficionado’s playlist. I’ve wanted to hear more of Beyer’s music since hearing that early electronic piece of hers, and now want to hear the remainder of her oeuvre.

One Dance Alone

Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet

Songlines Recordings

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The Gravitas Quartet (Wayne Horvitz, piano; Peggy Lee, cello; Ron Miles, cornet; Sara Schoenbeck, bassoon) presents an interesting dichotomy on this CD. Alternating tracks switch back and forth between discontent and progressive chamber music and smoother jazzy-sounding works. The instrumentation and blend of the performers is striking and captivating and their instrumentation is inspiring to me in my own composition. Both sides of this CD (if you take my meaning) are strong and natural sounding. I feel like the “chamber music” and the “jazz” pieces are really natural parts of Horvitz’s language. Nothing sounds forced, contrived, or ill-prepared. The journey through this musical landscape is quite enticing and highly recommended.

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Wayne Horvitz and Sweeter Than the Day

A Walk in the Dark

Self-released

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In contrast to the Gravitas disc in the above paragraph, this CD is pretty straight forward jazz. This time, Wayne Horvitz, still on the piano, is joined with Timothy Young on guitar, Keith lowe on contrabass, and Eric Eagle on drums. Each of the eleven tracks has smooth, long melodies or good forward-moving grooves. A very easy disc to listen to in either foreground or background settings. As a fun fact, several of the same tunes are presented on both discs (“Waltz from Woman of Tokyo,” “Undecided,” “We Never Met” and “A Walk in the Rain”) and there are things to enjoy about each version of these tunes. The music is strong, the compositional voice is engaging and comforting at the same time. This is a second strong release for this talented composer and pianist.

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Joe Hill: 16 Actions for Orchestra, Voices and Soloist

Text by Paul Magid

New World Records

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Danny Barnes, Robin Holcomb, Rinde Eckert, vocalists; Bill Frisell, soloist; Northwest Sinfonia, Christian Knapp, conductor

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Wayne Horvitz flexes his cantata muscles with an 80 minute piece for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra based on the life of Joe Hill. This piece comes across as a super-sized Lincoln Portrait about organized labor. Horvitz clearly has the Americana sound and orchestration under his belt and wields it appropriately for this material. Unfortunately, not seeing this work staged left the dramatic arc to the music alone and I was not swept up in the emotional situations based solely on the strength of the music. I think that seeing this work and seeing performers show emotion would have helped me connect but musically I found the narrative trajectory lacking. The tunes are solid as are the orchestrations and harmonizations. I think that any of these “16 actions” could serve well on its own or as a set but the whole cycle is lacking in emotional direction and leads to aural overload.

So ends my review of three Wayne Horvitz discs. As a wise man once said, “two out of three ain’t bad.”

Lapidation, East Orange, I Diet on Cod, Mise en abí®me, The King of Kabay,
New World Records 80593-2
performed by Marty Ehrlich, tenor saxophone, clarinet; Doug Wieselman, clarinet, bass clarinet, E-flat clarinet; Ned Rothenberg, clarinet, bass clarinet; Dan Barrett, cello; Gareth Flowers, trumpet; Christopher McIntyre, Jacob Garchik, trombone; Steven Gosling, Joseph Kubera, piano; Cornelius Dufallo, violin; Dan Barrett, cello; Marco Cappelli, guitar, electric guitar, mandolin; Ken Filiano, Sean Conly, bass; Ted Reichman, accordion; Jim Pugliese, Kevin Norton, percussion; Retake Iowa: Christopher McDonald, piano; Ashley Paul, Chris Veilleux, alto saxophones; Dana Jessen, bassoon; Jameson Swanagon, electric guitar; Cory Pesaturo, accordion; Matt Plummer, trombone; Eli Keszler, drums; Ben Davis, bass; Anthony Coleman, electric organ, conductor.

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Anthony Coleman’s offerings on Lapidation are all cut from the same cloth. This is not a negative criticism, but suffice to say that if you don’t like the opening few minutes of Lapidation, chances are you won’t be compelled by the rest of the disc.

The opening gesture of the title track brings Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments immediately to the ears. The bright clarinet bursts alternate with darker and more percussive tones. This sound world permeates the disc. Lapidation, I Diet on Cod and The King of Kabay, composed between 1988 and 2002 do not show a significant stylistic change in Coleman’s output. He is clearly working out some specific obsessions in these pieces. Mise en abí®me is of similar harmonic stuff as the previously mentioned pieces, but with a much softer and sedate tone. There is a constant flow of gestures throughout Mise en abí®me and East Orange, the CD’s only solo work. I found East Orange easily the most compelling work on the CD with its improvisatory feel and spiky harmonies.

LeBARON: Pope Joan; Transfiguration. Kristin Norderval, Lucy Shelton, soprano; Dorothy Stone, flutes; Camilla Hoitenga, flute; Keve Wilson, oboes; Jim Sullivan, clarinets; Lorna Eder, piano; Eric km Clark, violin; Andrew McIntosh, viola; Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick, cello; June Han, harp; Nicholas Terry, William Trigg, percussion; Mark Menzies, Rand Steiger, conductor. New World 80663. 70 minutes.

Anne LeBaron writes ritualistic music of excitement and power. LeBaron uses techniques from a dazzling array of styles and periods to craft pieces that hang together as expressive wholes. Pope Joan and Transfiguration are both settings of texts that deal with secret or alternative histories, in which the world is either very different from the world we think we are in (Pope Joan) or a world that has turned out differently (Transfigurations).

LeBaron brings her considerable talent and imagination to bear in these pieces, producing works of deep political commitment that are not swallowed up by the politics. LeBaron’s voice is a distinctively late 20^th century American one, embracing the European and American avant-garde traditions and American pop gestures with equal effect.

The performances here are assured and expressive. Everyone involved is on the composer’s wave-length and make the stylistic changes seamlessly. The sound is very good and the notes, especially an essay by musicologist Judy Lochhead, are excellent. Highly recommended.

ROSENBOOM: Future Travel; And Out Come the Night Ears. David Rosenboom, Buchla Touché & 300 Series Electric Music Box, piano, violin, percussion, texts. New World 80668. 72 minutes.

David Rosenboom is a long-time pioneer in the combination of instrumentally and electronically produced sounds. This release makes recordings originally made around 1980 available on CD for the first time. The composer has edited and enhanced the music, and included material left off the earlier vinyl release.

The music itself is pop and jazz influenced and sequencer heavy. The layering of repeated patterns of different lengths keeps the proceedings going. It’s not my favorite kind of live/electronic music, I must admit, but it does what it does with style.

The sound is very clean, almost to the point of antiseptic, but that’s the nature of this particular beast.

DIDKOVSKY: Ice Cream Time. Nick Didkovsky, electric guitar, laptop; Thomas Dimuzio, sampling, live sampling, and processing; ARTE Quartett: Beat Hofstetter, soprano and baritone saxophone; Sascha Armbruster, alto and baritone saxophone; Andrea Formenti, tenor saxophone; Beat Kappeler, baritone saxophone. New World 80667. 57 minutes

Nick Didkovsky’s music, at least the album-length piece Ice Cream Time, is sharp, clever, rigorous, funny, and, at times moving. The influences are numerous, from minimalism, post-minimalism, art rock, Spike Jones, etc., but they are subsumed into a personal, directly expressive whole. Most listeners will find something to like here, but my favorite sections are those, like “Seltzer Session 2″ and the concluding “Rise” whose placid surfaces contain multitudes of expression.

The playing, whether of instruments or laptops or other electronic devices, is first rate, as is New World’s sound, especially some quite vivid stereo effects.

Ice Cream Time is cool and, yes,  pretty sweet.

 

RICHARDS: finalbells; time’s racing; My Great-aunt Julia; Conch Music; harte’s bels; The Bells Themselves: Jonathan Edwards and the American Songbook; Chicken Pull. Alan Zimmerman, cowbells; Kay Stonefelt, percussion; David Keck, bass-baritone; Paul Schiavo, oboe; Greg Purnhagen, baritone; Paul Marquardt, piano; Molly Paccione, clarinet; Adam Alter, bass clarinet; Eric Richards, whistler. New World 80673-2. 67 minutes.

[Disclaimer: I've known Molly Paccione (clarinet) and Paul Paccione (annotator) for many years. They introduced me to Eric Richards and his music back in 1993. I'm very pleased to have this opportunity to write a little bit about it]

The music of Eric Richards creates and gives life to an original soundworld unlike any I have ever encountered before. It is a soundworld of space, quietude, and expressive power.

Richards’ music is private in the same way that great string quartets are, probing and introspective, yet it is open and even accessible, in the best sense of that often abused word and idea. The music’s introspection is dramatically expressed by Richards’ characteristic scoring for groups of identical instruments, with most of the parts pre-recorded for performance by a soloist who then plays a part accompanied by the tape of herself playing the other parts.

The most extreme example of this procedure is Chicken Pull, for 72 clarinet parts and 4 whistlers. Molly Paccione (clarinet), Adam Alter (bass clarinet), and the composer (whistling), is a quietly teeming piece based on recordings of classic blues introductions, transcribed and rewritten. Chicken Pull is also characteristic of Richards’ work through its use of other types of music to create new sounds and forms.

In some pieces these found musical objects are placed in opposition to extramusical ideas. In The Bells Themselves: Jonathan Edwards and the American Songbook (for three pianos, with Paul Marquardt performing all three parts), abstracted bits of American show tunes are juxtaposed with the brimstone warnings of the titular Puritan preacher. The urgency of the playing and the increasing layering of the fragments as the piece progresses express a life and death struggle like those in Edwards’ sermons.

The vocal pieces on the program, My Great-aunt Julia (sung with conviction by David Keck) and harte’s bels (all five parts sung by Greg Purnhagen) reflect Richards’ e pluribus unum aesthetic in different ways. The baritone in harte’s bels accompanies himself on tape while the bass-baritone in My Great-aunt Julia gives an illusion of multiplicity through rapid juxtapositions of fragments in widely divergent registers.

finalbells, time’s racing, and Conch Music all explore various kinds of resonance””cowbells, percussion, and oboe sounds respectively. Like the other pieces on this remarkable disc, they make oblique reference to other musics or soundworlds. The performances are sensitive and musical.

I can’t give this  disc any higher recommendation for those interested in absorbing, original, and thoroughly contemporary music.

ADAMS, JOHN LUTHER: for Lou Harrison. Callithumpian Consort/Stephen Drury. New World 80669. 63 minutes.

From its lushly romantic opening gesture to its final, not-exactly-conclusive chord over an hour later, John Luther Adams’ for Lou Harrison is a captivating musical experience. Adams’ command of harmony and his seemingly unerring sense of scale and musical respiration fully complement his keen ear for instrumental color. He is a composer in full control of what he wants to do.

The quietude and openness of Lou Harrison’s music is reflected in this remembrance, but there is no hint of quotation or imitation. Adams’ musical personality comes through clearly.

for Lou Harrison is ambitious and intimate, a personal and elegiac meditation. The opening gesture I mentioned recurs throughout the piece, functioning as a structural marker as well as a ritual of honor and remembrance. Stephen Drury leads the Callithumpian Consort in a sensitive, committed reading of the challenging music. New World’s sound is clean and warm, appropriate to the music.

Very highly recommended.