Author: Christian Carey

Birthdays, CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Ethan Iverson’s Blue Note Debut (CD Review)

Ethan Iverson

Every Note is True

Ethan Iverson, piano; Larry Grenadier, bass; Jack DeJohnette, drums

Blue Note

 

Pianist Ethan Iverson received an excellent birthday present today: the release of Every Note is True, his debut recording on Blue Note Records. Since departing the Bad Plus, Iverson has worked on a number of projects as a composer, taught at New England Conservatory, written insightful criticism and pedagogical articles on his blog Do the Math and for other publications, and collaborated with musicians such as saxophonist Mark Turner, drummer Bill Hart, and trumpeter Tom Harrell. Followers of these activities will note that the pianist’s encyclopedic explication of the jazz tradition in his writings has mirrored trends in his recent playing. 

 

Iverson, ever unpredictable, takes a different approach on Every Note is True. Apart from a single tune, “Blue,” by drummer Jack DeJohnette, all of the compositions on the recording are originals by Iverson. Many resume a connection to the rock-inflected jazz he made earlier in his career. Not one to attempt to remake the past, Iverson has selected collaborators who are two of the best known players in jazz, DeJohnette and bassist Larry Grenadier. The absence of covers – a Bad Plus staple – and presence of fulsome swing from his current collaborators allows Iverson the opportunity to blend multiple approaches into a compelling amalgam distinct from his previous work. 

 

A couple of imaginary theme songs populate the recording. “She Won’t Forget Me” is likened by Iverson to a rom-com theme, although I have never heard a rom-com theme with as zesty a solo. The album itself starts with a quirky vocal number, “The More it Changes,” a commercial sounding song featuring overdubs of a number of Iverson’s friends, Sarah Deming (who wrote the lyrics), Alex Ross, and Mark Padmore among them, who sang their parts remotely. Brief enough to leave a listener just enough time to scramble to their playlist and settle back in their seat, it is followed by the avowedly not soundtrack-related “The Eternal Verities,” a sequential tune with a little chromatic twist as it turns around. Grenadier’s playing embellishes the changes and adds countermelodies that interlock well with the spacious solo that Iverson provides. A coda brings the progression to a sideways yet satisfying conclusion. 

 

“For Ellen Raskin” is dedicated to one of Iverson’s favorite children’s authors. It is a gentle jazz waltz with bluesy inflections and deft use of hemiola – moving from 3/4  to 6/8 – to give a little Brahmsian nod to the proceedings. “Had I but Known” is an uptempo tune with sequences of dissonant intervals and polychords in the bridge that allow for a suave extrapolation of Fats Waller’s language and voicings. Particularly persuasive is “Had I but Known,” which is through-composed rather than primarily improvised. It combines a balladic cast with tart melodic punctuations and Ivesian verticals. 

 

Iverson admired DeJohnette’s “Blue” when he heard it on John Abercrombie’s 1978 ECM recording Gateway 2. With powerful fills from the drummer, Iverson’s interpretation revels in the tune’s unadorned triads, particularly the one at the close that receives an expansive arpeggiation. Whereas jazz chords usually contain more than just the triad, with 6th, 7ths, 9ths and more added to harmonies, using a bare triad in the right context buoys the connection that Iverson is making throughout Every Note is True between commercial pop, rock, and jazz.

 

“Merely Improbable” presents a more traditional structure, providing a chance for Iverson and company to play rhythm changes, variants on the chord structure of Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” that populate countless standards. As with the other compositions here, at three and a half minutes the run-time is relatively lean; I would have been happy to hear the trio stretch it out. “Praise Will Travel” is an ebullient piece performed with a tight groove offsetting florid soloing. Titled after an Agatha Christie story, the album closer “At the Bells and Motley” is a jaunty blues that demonstrates the trio’s simpatico interaction. Here we get the longed-for jam, with nine minutes of subtle shifts of emphasis and piano solos that build from restraint to sly quotation to gestures writ large and back again. Excellent solos from Grenadier and DeJohnette as well.

 

Every Note is True is an auspicious label debut that demonstrates the imagination, breadth, and wit of Iverson’s playing while maintaining a spirit of enthusiastic collaboration. Highly recommended. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Birthdays, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?

Moog Celebrates Herb Deutsch with First Episode of GIANTS Series

On Wednesday, February 9th, Herb Deutsch turned ninety years old. Deutsch has been an icon of sound synthesis both as a composer and hardware designer. One of the inventors of the first Moog synthesizers, he designed the keyboard interface that served as the basis for countless synths that followed. Moog Music is using this auspicious occasion to kick off GIANTS, a series of films about synth pioneers. In the video below, Deutsch describes his life, musical inspirations, and the early days of creating versatile hardware to perform and record electronic sound. 

 

After the film about Deutsch, you will soon be able to view a number of films that celebrate pivotal figures in electronic music on Moog’s YouTube channel. Future episodes will feature Suzanne Ciani, Bernie Krause, and Daniel Miller. Alongside the recent Sisters with Transistors documentary, the documentation of electronic music’s early luminaries is a welcome opportunity to reassess its legacy. 

On a personal note, as a fellow Long Islander, Deutsch’s long tenure at Hofstra University and co-founding of the Long Island Composer Alliance helped to provide many events that opened my ears to the possibilities of sound, and for that I remain ever grateful.

 

by Christian Carey
CDs, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Deaths, Experimental Music, File Under?

George Crumb (1929-2022)

We are saddened to learn of the loss of George Crumb, who passed away on February 6, 2022 at the age of 92. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the composer was one of the most important musical figures of his generation, both as a creator and, for many years, as a professor at University of Pennsylvania. Considered by his students to be a supportive and gifted teacher, he mentored a number of composers who went on to major careers.

 

Crumb composed a large catalog of works, and many of them have become touchstones of the contemporary repertoire.  The bracing amplified string quartet Black Angels (1970) decried the atrocities of the Vietnam War; from that same year, the poignant and colorful Ancient Voices of Children is a standout among a host of eloquent settings of Federico Garcia Lorca’s poetry. He often wrote series of pieces; Madrigals from the 1960s for soprano and mixed ensemble, Makrokosmos from the 1970s for amplified piano, and American Songbooks from the 2000s for male and female voices and mixed ensemble are among them. Occasional pieces, including a few depicting his beloved mischievous dogs and a gloss on Thelonious Monk’s “‘Round Midnight,” were witty and equally memorable.

Photo: Rob Starobin

From the outset of his career, Crumb referenced a different set of influences than many of his relative peers, with Bartôk, Debussy, Cowell, Cage, and the burgeoning movement of postmodern Europeans informing him as he struck out on his own path. Crumb was a tremendously imaginative orchestrator, in particular expanding the role and number of percussion instruments in chamber music. The look of his scores, which were frequently graphic in design, was also distinctive. Crumb’s music provided chamber groups, especially new music ensembles, with repertoire that stretched them technically and encouraged them to listen carefully to find the character and balance of the distinctive sound combinations he supplied. His work gave generations of other emerging composers permission to use an expansive set of resources and think outside the box. 


In 2021, a recent piano cycle (2015-2020) in two books, Metamorphoses, in which each piece evoked a work of visual art from a disparate collection of painters, was released on CD by Bridge Records as the twentieth volume of their George Crumb Edition. The composer was involved in the recordings, active until near the end of his extraordinary life. 

by Christian Carey
Birthdays, CD Review, Chamber Music, Classical Music, File Under?, Piano

Celebrating Mendelssohn’s Birthday with Piano Works

Celebrating Mendelssohn’s Birthday with Piano Recordings

 

February 3rd is Felix Mendelssohn’s birthday. To celebrate, here are two reviews of recent recordings of piano music by the composer.

Felix Mendelssohn

Complete Music for Solo Piano, Vol. 6

Hyperion CD

Howard Shelley

 

Pianist Howard Shelley has been making his way through the compendious catalog of Felix Mendelssohn. The latest entry in his complete set, Volume Six, contains several well-known favorites as well as gems without opus numbers. If one has the impression of Mendelssohn as a neo-Mozartean composer of grace without the oomph of a creator like Schumann from the Romantic generation, the powerful Reiterlied presents a different side of the composer, as does his Sonata in B-flat Major, which should be programmed far more than it currently is. The Fugue in E minor reminds one of Mendelssohn’s affinity and advocacy for Bach’s music. Shelley makes the case for versatility in Mendelssohn but retains the quintessentially burnished and characterful nature of his “Songs Without Words” in recordings of two of the books of this collection. A lovingly crafted addition to what is becoming a benchmark complete works edition.

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy

Complete Music for Piano Solo

Hänssler Classic 12 CD boxed set

Ana-Marija Markovina

 

Ana-Marija Markovina has released her Mendelssohn cycle all at once in a well-appointed 12 CD boxed set. Where Shelley brings out the luminous qualities of the piano works, Markovina is a classicist, creating interpretations that are lucidly detailed. I am particularly fond of Markovina’s playing in the sonatas and fugues, where she reveals the architecture of these pieces with abundant clarity.

The pieces without opus number, including fragments and juvenalia, are spread throughout the collection rather than put in an appendix. At first, this may seem surprising, however it is an excellent way to measure Mendelssohn’s prodigious development. The composition teacher in me immediately thought of using the fragments and short pieces with students, asking them for Mendelssohnian completions as assignments; they are ideal models. It is wonderful that both pianists have taken on this project, as there is ample room for their distinctive approaches.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Orchestras, Twentieth Century Composer

Michael Gielen Edition Vol. 10 (CD Review)

Michael Gielen Edition Volume 10: Music After 1945

SWR Sinfonieorchester, Michael Gielen conductor

SWR 6xCD boxed set

 

The tenth and final boxed set in SWR’s Michael Gielen Edition spotlights his considerable contributions to post-1945 concert music. Seven hours of live recordings of music by European avant-garde figures Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono, György Ligeti, György Kurtág, Jorge E. López, Maurizio Kagel, and Bernd Alois Zimmerman and Americans Morton Feldman, John Cage, and George Crumb. Gielen’s own compositions are featured as well. Gielen (1927-2019) may not have been prolific, but proves to be a fine composer, one whose works should be considered for programming more regularly. Vier Gedichte von Stefan George (2010) (“Four Poems of Stefan George”) finds the SWR Vokalensemble joining a chamber segment of the SWR Sinfonieorchester in a performance that displays the virtuosity of both groups to excellent advantage. Pflicht und Neigung (1988) (“Duty and Inclination”) is imaginatively scored for a sinfonietta sans strings, with muscular percussion writing, crystalline wind chords, and eruptive brass lines. 

 

As the previous nine boxed sets of the Gielen Edition attest, he was a conductor who excelled in many different eras and styles of music-making. Still, Gielen’s championing of contemporary music is legendary, as are some of the performances included here. Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Requiem für einen junge Dichter (1969) (“Requiem for a Young Poet”) has a particularly dark history that lends to the already harrowing nature of the work. Both the narrator, a pivotal performer in the piece, and Zimmermann himself committed suicide shortly after the Requiem’s premiere by SWR and Gielen. It has been widely debunked that Mozart was “writing his own Requiem,” but can one say that of Zimmermann’s riveting piece? Gielen reportedly wasn’t so sure. Ligeti’s Requiem (1965) is another selection that is a standout, with radiant singing of its tight clusters and affecting emotive delivery. Instead of the dizzying polyglot assemblage of myriad texts in the decidedly secular and even nihilistic Zimmermann piece, Ligeti uses portions of the Catholic Requiem liturgy as part of his postmodern setting. George Crumb’s Star Child (1977) is another textual amalgam, with references to Gnostic concepts of Advent and Apocalypse. As so frequently in Crumb’s work, his attention to declamation is only matched by imaginative and exquisitely detailed scoring. 

 

Having recently finished Nono’s collected writings, it was particularly wonderful to hear these fine recordings of his music. In the book, Nono mentions working out complex canons with Bruno Maderna as a focal point of his training, which he deploys here in Variazioni canoniche. His signature orchestral work, No hay caminos hay que caminar (1987) (“Walker, there is no path yet you must Walk”), and A Carlo Scarpa (1984), dedicated to the famous twentieth century architect, also represent Gielen’s staunch support of and insights into Nono’s work. 

 

Kurtág’s Stele (1994) is the piece that elevated his compositional career, and it remains one of his most durable works; SWR provides a rendition that could be the benchmark for a long time to come. Ein Brief (1986) (“A Letter”) by Mauricio Kagel is a piece for mezzo-soprano and orchestra that features angular vocalise and Schoenbergian harmony; it reads like an enigmatic sequel to Erwartung. 

 

The artistic breadth and consistently superior musicality of this set are extraordinary. Given their archival nature, listeners may be surprised at the fidelity of the recordings. Details are clear, and dynamic range is tremendous; the disc containing the pieces by Lopez even includes a warning to be careful of the dynamic extremes of the piece when choosing a volume level. The selections by this composer are all premiere recordings. Born in Cuba and an emigree to the United States, Lopez has for some years been a citizen of Austria, flying under the radar of much of the American musical establishment. His formidable scoring and the aforementioned extremes navigated by his music may also play a role. These prove to be right in Gielen and SWR’s wheelhouse; they make a case for Dome Peak (1993) and Breath-Hammer-Lightning (1991) as  compelling works that deal with a gargantuan spatial aesthetic.

 

Two of Pierre Boulez’s most important orchestra pieces are included here, Rituel in Memoriam Bruno Maderna (1975) and movements from the seemingly ever enlarging Notations (recorded in 1990, with an additional portion added in 2003). Rituel incorporates expressive gestures and formal bearing; it was truly a turning point piece for Boulez. Notations was a touchstone work emblematic of the composer’s willingness to build up and revise fragments of material throughout his lifetime. It is masterfully scored and tailor made for a detail-oriented Gielen. Once again, SWR displays extraordinary fluency in densely complex music.  

 

The late Feldman piece Coptic Light (1985) clocks in at nearly a half hour, which is short by the composer’s standards. It is still one of his most impressive essays, requiring 106 musicians to create a kaleidoscope of colors, staggered entrances, and off-kilter near repetitions. The Gielen set closes with another New York School piece, the totemic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1958), an audacious open form piece in which the conductor is literally a time-keeper, using his hands to indicate positions on the clock to move through the piece’s sections. The soloist’s part, written on single sheets, can be assembled in any order. Despite all of the chance procedures at work here, the SWR and Gielen understand the performance practice surrounding Cage’s output well, making clear that they are as equally at home in American experimental music as they are the European avant-garde. Highly recommended. 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Bass, Birthdays, CD Review, Experimental Music, File Under?, Improv, jazz

Happy 70th Birthday William Parker

The masterful bassist William Parker turns seventy today. Tonight (January 10th) through the 17th, Arts for Art, the foundation with which Parker is associated, is making available a livestream of Parker playing his hour long solo composition “Black Reflection and Meditation.” (Tickets here: Donation of at least $5 requested).

The number of labels and recordings on which Parker has appeared is formidable, but AUM Fidelity has been a mainstay in his career for some time (they are co-organizers of the online salon). Any deep dive into the bassist’s recorded output should include AUM CDs. One might start with some of his large ensemble works with Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra or opt for The Peach Orchard with the 1990s quartet In Order to Survive, which included pianist Cooper-Moore, saxophonist Rob Brown, and percussionist Susie Ibarra.

Parker has had a long musical relationship with pianist Matthew Shipp. A recent outing that displays their extraordinary interplay with the drummer Whit Dickey is 2021’s Village Mothership, released on the recent AUM offshoot Tao Forms. Parker has also recorded for 577 Records. Last September saw the release of Music Frees Our Souls, Vol. 1, on which Parker and Shipp joined drummer Francisco Mela for another rousing trio set. Comparing the two CDs, it is noteworthy how much a different drummer inspires Parker and Shipp to take a fresh approach to linear dialogue, harmonic choices, and use of space.

2021 also saw the release of the 10-CD boxed set (of all new music) Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World. The set is a truly rewarding deep dive into Parker’s work. Another immersive experience is Universal Tonality (Duke University Press, 2021), the first full length book devoted to Parker’s life and music, written by the critic and historian Cisco Bradley.

So many ways to celebrate. Happy Birthday William Parker!

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, File Under?

Best of 2021: Rock/Adjacent

G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END!

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Constellation Records

 

As with their previous album Luciferan Towers, a published manifesto accompanied the release of Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s seventh LP, G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END!. While further left than Bernie Sanders, some of the planks of Godspeed’s platform – defunding the police, taxing the wealthy, prison reform, climate change mitigation – seem newly relevant in light of the (first?) two pandemic years and their concomitant political and social awakening. Rather than curse the darkness, this time out the band makes music that is defiant, indefatigable, and even exuberant in demeanor. Long and short form pieces, with post-rock’s customary accumulating arrangements tweaked to break the formula in significant places, reveal some of GSY!BE’s most compelling work to date. Best song title of the year goes to their “First of the Last Glaciers.”

 

Hey What

Low

Sub Pop

 

Following the progression further out that began with 2018’s Double Negative, Low has released Hey What, their most experimental album yet. Those who are surprised may only be familiar with their more mainstream mid period music. Look back to the band’s earliest recordings and a clear connection to their slowcore beginnings can be seen in the recent turn to sonic adventure. This is not to suggest that the songs on Hey What have been divested of melody or memorability. Quite the contrary, “All Night,” “Days Like These,” and the rousing two minutes of “More” contain some of Low’s finest hooks. That the sound environment surrounding them is distressed and distorted proves no hindrance. In this case, a thirteenth album is a lucky break – with tradition. 

IT’S NOT THEM. IT COULDN’T BE THEM. IT IS THEM.

Guided by Voices

GBV Inc.

 

True, IT’S NOT THEM. IT COULDN’T BE THEM. IT IS THEM., Guided by Voices thirty-fourth – yes, that’s right, thirty-fourth – album has some audacious arrangement choices. This is especially true of the first track, “Spanish Coin,” which begins with acoustic guitar playing harmonics and strings – yes, that’s right, strings on a GbV album – playing a slow introduction before the song kicks in with an Iberian progression. It soars chromatically upward partway through before being supplanted by an honest to goodness mariachi trumpet solo. 

Fans of GbV’s nineties lo-fi work may scoff, but they don’t make the rules: Robert Pollard is still in the captain’s chair. Besides, there are plenty of trademark Pollard songs, aphoristic yet blooming with melodic interest and harmonic twists and turns; for example, the rollicking “Dance of Gurus” and “I Share a Rhythm,” atmospheric multi-part “Maintenance Man of the Haunted House,” and impish, syncopated “I Wanna Monkey.” Guitarists Bobby Bare, Jr. and Doug Gillard, bassist Mark Shue, and drummer Kevin March may not be the classic lineup, but all have been working with Pollard for years and they prove, as always, to be a tight unit that can get rough around the edges as warranted. One assumes album number thirty-five is likely in train, but in the meantime Pollard and company have supplied us with songs to savor.   

 

Acoustic and Ambient Spheres, Vol. 2

Popul Vuh

BMG 4xCD/4XLP

 

A treasure trove for prog and film music enthusiasts alike, Acoustic and Ambient Spheres, Vol. 2 on BMG contains four albums from the seventies and eighties by Popul Vuh: Seligpreisung, Agape-Agape, Coeur de Verre, and Cobra Verde. The latter two are evocative soundtracks for films by Werner Hertzog. The first band to use a Moog synthesizer, Popul Vug also incorporated acoustic instruments, Non-Western source material, drone, chanting, and incipient elements of ambient; all alongside the kitbag of Krautrock. So many styles and artists have propogated from their work. 

 

Seligpreisung’s lead off track, “Selig sind die, die da hungern,” demonstrates several of the afore-mentioned elements of their sound, but also that Popul Vuh could rock out with the best of them in 1973. A decade later, Agape-Agape evinces spiritual questing and a penchant for post-minimalism. One wishes that a few more recent film composers would give a listen to Cobra Verde and arrange accordingly; “Der Tod Das Cobra Verde” is a track that begins with unforgettable deep-throated chanting and moves into a hybridization that is part Koyaanisqatsi, part Can, and quintessentially Popul Vuh.  

 

Live in Brighton 1975

Live in Stuttgart 1975

Can

Mute Records, two 2xCD sets

 

Can eschewed live albums, and it is a pity. One can imagine collectors of Krautrock and jam bands alike thrilling to their improvisatory escapades onstage. Two surprisingly good-sounding bootlegs have surfaced, both from the band’s heyday in 1975. Of the two, Live in Brighton 1975 is a bit more rangy, with a few miscues along the way, but eventually it coalesces into some extraordinary playing that incorporates thematic material from the band’s then recent recordings alongside a great deal of improvisation. Live in Stuttgart 1975 is tighter in terms of ensemble, yet still features imaginative extended suites. Song titles don’t appear: the music is too dense with cross-references and fresh material that disappeared into the ether, never to be worked out in the studio. One is grateful that this pair of buried treasures have come to light.

Strange Fortune

Powers/Rolin Duo

Astral Editions

 

Gerycz/Powers/Rolin

Lamplighter

American Dreams

 

Ohio based musicians dulcimer/autoharp player Jen Powers, guitarist Matthew Rolin, and percussionist Jason Gerycz don’t talk a lot before they play, maybe thirty seconds to a minute, according to Powers. On the American Dreams album Lamplighter, the pieces the trio crafts are mostly improvised, and their collective work coheres into imaginative designs that incorporate folk music, drone, and urgent post-rock. The dulcimer isn’t often associated with rocking out, but Jen Powers makes it seem like the instrument was made for it. One of the tracks I have played the most this year is “Rotations,” which is bold, richly textured, and propelled by Gerycz’s energetic drumming. Though the trio likes to hang, they also create a concise rambler, “June,” that resembles song structure more than a long form jam.  

 

Powers and Rolin perform as a duo on the Astral Editions recording Strange Fortune. Here Rolin plays twelve-string, and the blend that Powers and he achieve creates a beguiling atmosphere on “Birdhouse” and “Tea Lights.” The twenty-minute long “Amaranth” is a sonic waterfall of ambient psychedelia.

I Don’t Live Here Anymore

The War on Drugs

Atlantic Records

 

If you view the Tiny Desk video below, you get a sense of the newly elaborate arrangements that War on Drugs are employing. It is impressive, given how many tracks are layered in each song, the high percentage of the record that they are able to replicate live. Frontman Adam Granduciel continues to reference totemic figures: Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Mark Knopfler, Bob Dylan, et cetera. But more than ever the songs transcend these influences to put eighties pop through a decidedly 21st century lens. Singles like the title track and “Change” are stretched out to the five and six minute mark with multiple solo breaks, reminding us that rock can take its time instead of bowing to an arbitrary framework.

 

 

Uncommon Weather

The Reds, Pinks, and Purples

Slumberland 

 

In 2021, how do you financially  survive in San Francisco as a creative artist? Are ‘scenes’ left after tech money and gentrification move in? Should single people give up on finding love in year two of distancing due to the pandemic? Glenn Donaldson deals with heavy subjects on Uncommon Weather, his third album as The Reds, Pinks, and Purples (in less than three years, no less). Despite this, his lyric sensibility and sure songcraft save us from bathos. Long a lo-fi musician, Donaldson records most of this himself, with a bit of help from guitarist Thomas Rubinstein and bassist Charlie Ertola. Reverberant echo and drum machines remind one of a host of influences, with Television Personalities frequently mentioned as a touchstone. Uncommon Weather wears these influences lightly, and supplies the listener with memorable songs that channel our frustration with current crises, both collective and personal.

 

Mogwai

As the Love Continues

Rock Action/Temporary Residence Ltd.

 

On February 26th, twenty-five years into their recording career, Mogwai hit #1 on the UK charts. The band’s two previous full length releases were in the Top 10 in the UK, but the success of As the Love Continues, their tenth album, is remarkable.

 

Known for a live act that is one of the loudest in history, Mogwai retains a musicality that often hews close to the shaping of post-rock, with varied textures supplied both by synthesizers and electric guitars replete with pedals. The looping melody of “Dry Fantasy” evinces minimalist sympathies, as does “Here We, Here We, Here We Go Forever,” the latter combining a looping chordal ostinato with drums providing one of the more danceable grooves in the band’s catalog.

 

Vocals treated with vocoder appear on a couple tracks, and the album opens with a spoken word excerpt – Benjamin John Power (Blanck Mass) apparently speaking in his sleep – that also serves as the song’s curious title, “To the Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate Earth.” What follows seems to emanate from a dreamstate, with heartbeat drums and haloing of harmonics giving way to overlapping melodies for synth-piano and guitar that provide a slow burn prior to one of the band’s patented anthemic choruses. Mogwai often gives their music enigmatic titles. The track “Ritchie Sacramento” was inspired by a record store clerk’s mishearing of Ryuichi Sakamoto. However, the piece, the only one with non-modified vocals, is more somber than this pun would suggest, referencing grief, not just for the COVID year, but for departed musician friends, among them David Berman.

 

Some emphases have changed, and As the Love Continues shows the band relishing a temperament for exploration. Mogwai still makes thunderous rock. “Ceiling Granny” is inspired by a scene from The Exorcist, and the terror that Braithwaite experienced upon viewing it is translated into roaring guitars and triple forte drumming.  

 

Listen to an interview with Stuart Braithwaite and some live performances below.

 

KEXP interview and live performances:

 

“Ritchie Sacramento” Official Video: 

 

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?

Best of 2021: New/Experimental Recordings

Best New/Experimental Recordings

Trio IX and Exercises

Christian Wolff

Trio Accanto

Nicholas Hodges, piano; Marcus Weiss, saxophone; Christian Dierstein, percussion

Wergo CD

Three String Quartets

Christian Wolff

Quatuor Bozzini

New World CD

 

On Trio IX and Exercises, Trio Accanto performs recent music by Christian Wolff, a composer with whom they have often collaborated. Trio IX (2017) is dedicated to the group, and it is filled with tunes ranging from J.S. Bach to work songs to quotes and “reminiscences”  from Wolff’s own music. This is a palimpsest of a quodlibet, and all the better for it, as the strands from Wolff’s repertory of tunes are crafted into a fast shifting colloquy between trio members. Snippets of material are passed back and forth, with frequent interruptions and sudden confluences that make for many delightful surprises. Trio Accanto also performs some of Wolff’s most recent pieces in his Exercises series, from 2011 and 2018; open instrumentation, mobile form compositions. The similarity between these freer pieces and Trio IX, and the fact that the performers worked on the music in close consultation with the composer, suggest that this is a benchmark recording for understanding Wolff’s recent performance practice. 

 

Wolff’s String Quartet: Exercises Out of Songs (1974-1976) is another covert quodlibet, one in which Wolff’s music takes on an Ivesian cast, both in terms of some of the material and the collage aspects of the form. Once again, rapid stops and starts deliberately disrupt the flow. These juxtapositions are performed spotlessly by the estimable Quatuor Bozzini. Cast in a single movement, For Two Violinists, Violist, and Cellist (2008), as the title suggests, breaks the string quartet mold, allowing each player their own space and a degree of agency. This goes hand in hand with the egalitarian sensibility that Wolff has espoused both in his writings and music, always viewing new works with an eye toward collaboration. For Two Violinists, Violist, and Cellist ups the dissonance quotient but retains a highly gestural rhythmic language. Its one attacca movement, clocking in at over a half hour, is a compelling retort to large-scale late modernism. Out of Kilter (String Quartet 5) was written in 2019, and contrasts the previous piece in terms of design. Cast in a series of short movements, the demeanor now shifts within movements and between movements, capturing a plethora of moods, tempos, and solo, duo, and ensemble deployments. Wolff is nearing ninety years of age, yet he still has more tricks up his sleeve. 

 

Pauline Anna Strom

Angel Tears in Sunlight

RVNG

 

Pauline Anna Strom passed away in December 2020. She left behind her first new album in over thirty years, Angel Tears in Sunlight, which was released on RVNG in February 2021. The recent resurgence of interest in “sisters with transistors,” female synthesizer pioneers, has enabled a number of artists to be reconsidered and reissued. It has also inspired several to make new work. Strom was part of the dawning of New Age music, an unfairly maligned genre that is having a resurgence in interest. However, Angels Tears in Sunlight demonstrates that Strom’s work was never about easy stylistic markers. It includes pieces like “Marking Time” and “I Still Hope” in which one can readily hear how minimalism and ambient electronica were touchstones. Wide ranging glissandos in “Tropical Rainforest” unhinge elements of the music from simple harmonic trajectory into synth experimentation that resides further out. One only wishes Strom had gotten to see how deservedly this new music has been warmly received. 

 

Meadow

Linda Catlin Smith

Mia Cooper, violin; Joachim Roewer, viola and William Butt, cello

Louth Contemporary Music Society CD

 

Kermès

Julia Den Boer, piano

New Focus Recordings CD

 

Meadow was released December 11, 2020, too late for most music critics to catch it in time for year-end coverage (except Steve Smith and Tim Rutherford-Johnson, of course). Since the release of this half hour long string trio composed by Linda Catlin Smith, both the composer and the label of this release, Louth Contemporary Music Society, have grown in terms of influence and recorded output (see the Frey review below). Meadow contains a lush, primarily modal, harmonic palette tempered with piquant dissonances. Smith takes her time unfolding various patternings of the primarily chordal texture, creating a deliciously unhurried amble through fascinating, distinctive musical pathways. 

 

Catlin Smith features prominently on Kermès, a release on New Focus by pianist Julia Den Boer that features four pieces by female composers. The Underfolding once again features added-note harmonies, but these are interspersed with pure triads and, in a fleeting but fetching middle section, offset by a descending bass line. Crimson, by Rebecca Saunders, has some delightfully crunchy verticals, a constantly evolving set of clusters that move upward from the middle register to encompass widely spaced gestures in the soprano register. These two angular off-kilter ostinatos create complex rhythmic interrelationships. The lower register enters belatedly and is startling upon its appearance. Crimson’s denouement is something to behold. Déserts, by Giulia Lorusso, includes five movements responding to the flora and fauna of deserts in different locations. Lorusso often uses the sustain pedal to extend bass note jabs and dissonant intervals. These are juxtaposed against repeated open fifths and octaves, which reveal a plethora of overtones when sustained. Lorusso depicts powerful images of the desert as richly inhabited rather than the default brittle dryness that other composers have adopted. Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Reminiscence begins with open intervals and quickly moves to widely spaced diminished sonorities, from there incorporating polychords with the tritone remaining prominent. It is the first piece by Thorvaldsdottir that I can recall using chordal arpeggiations in the bass, which presses the piece forward during its conclusion. 

 

Alex Paxton

Music for Bosch People 

Birmingham Record Company/NMC

 

Taking the bizarre work of 16th century artist Hieronymus Bosch as an inspiration, on Bosch People improvising trombonist and composer Alex Paxton writes exuberantly polystylic music that switches abruptly from genre to genre: think Zappa, Zorn, and Vinko Globakar in a mixing bowl. Backed up by ten crackerjack musicians who inhabit jazz, rock, and contemporary classical, the music is breathless for the sopranos, saxophonists, and Paxton himself; likely for the listener as well.

 

I Listened to the Wind Again

Jürg Frey

Louth Contemporary Music Society

Hélène Fauchère, Soprano; Carol Robinson, Clarinet; Nathalie Chabot, Violin;  Agnès Vesterman, Cello; Garth Knox, Viola;  Sylvain Lemêtre, Percussion

 

Louth Contemporary Music Society has released a treasure trove of recordings via their Bandcamp site this year. This new recording of Jürg Frey’s I Listened to the Wind Again, for soprano, clarinet, strings, and percussion, is a standout among chamber releases of new music this year. Frey sets fragmentary quotations from French-Swiss poets Gustave Roud and Pierre Chappuis, Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi, and  Lebanese-U.S. poet-painter Etel Adnan. The gentle declamation of the text is exquisitely rendered by Hélène Fauchère. The rest of the ensemble undertakes similarly aphoristic lines, slowly and softly, which gradually thread together into an achingly beautiful web of layered interplay. I Listened to the Wind is a captivating listen.

 

Enno Poppe/Wolfgang Heiniger

Tonband

Yarnwire and Sam Torres

Wergo DL

 

Annea Lockwood

Becoming Air/Vanishing Point

Nate Wooley, trumpet

Yarn/Wire

Black Truffle DL

 

Michael Pisaro-Liu

Stem-flower-root

Nate Wooley

Tisser/Tissu Editions DL and Chapbook

 

Composers Enno Poppe and Wolfgang Heiniger collaborate on the work Tonband, a piece for the piano/percussion quartet Yarnwire plus live electronics. Heiniger is skilful at finding and emulating all sorts of vintage keyboard sounds and also supplies synthesis that glides through glissandos and microtones. Each composer has a solo work as well. Enno Poppe’s Field unfurls off-kilter ostinatos, building sheets of chromatic scales on mallet instruments and piano. Tonband, featuring live electronics performed by Sam Torres, is an imaginative combination of percussive timbres elicited from Yarn/Wire along with a diverse palette of bleep electronica. Heiniger’s solo turn Neumond, based on horror movie soundtracks, is an appropriately spooky electronics piece but also features a number of melodic fragments, each of which could be a theme in its own right. 

 

Two recent instrumental pieces by Annea Lockwood are included on a recent Black Truffle release, Becoming Air/Vanishing Point. Trumpeter Nate Wooley is challenged to transcend the limitations of his quite considerable chops on Becoming Air (2018). Wooley is a masterful trumpeter, who specializes in overblowing and extended techniques, but the piece deliberately creates an environment in which some notes will inevitably waver. Starting out soft with lots of silences and abetted by electronics, it eventually crescendos into a gale force of fortissimo distortion. Yarn/Wire is featured on the second piece, Vanishing Point, a threnody for the mass extinction of insects. While there is no attempt at deliberate parody, the ensemble does an estimable job creating an insectine ambience that is movingly evocative.

 

The format for Michael Pisaro-Liu’s Stem-flower-root is an appealing one: a download with a chapbook discussing the piece’s inspirations in detail. It was premiered at Brooklyn’s For/With Festival, for which Wooley commissioned solo trumpet pieces from composers who hadn’t previously considered the medium. Allowed here to address music that celebrates rather than devolves his sound, Wooley plays sustained tones with abundant air supply. Octaves and overtones enter over a unison to create polyphony based on the harmonic series. Sine tones play a prominent role as well, allowing for a different color to complement the trumpet. I love the depiction of the score, how Pisaro-Liu, in reference to the titular subject, describes sections as “branchings.” Wooley is an extraordinarily gifted player, and in tandem with one of the most imaginative composers in the US, he creates a winning performance of an absorbing piece.

 

Louis Andriessen

The Only One

Nora Fischer, soprano

Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor

Nonesuch Records

 

Louis Andriessen passed away this year at age 82 . The Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, has released one of Andriessen’s final works, The Only One (2018), on a Nonesuch recording. It is a set of five orchestral songs, with an introduction and two interludes, for soprano soloist Nora Fischer. The texts are by Flemish poet Delphine Lecompte, who translated the ones used into English. 

 

Fischer is a classically trained vocalist who is also adept in popular and cabaret styles. Her singing is abundantly expressive, ranging from Kurt Weill style recitation through honeyed lyricism to raspy screams. This is particularly well-suited both to the texts, which encompass a range of emotions, from rage to resignation, and to the abundantly varied resources Andriessen brings to bear. In The Only One, his inspiration remains undimmed; it is a finely wrought score. Much of it explores pathways through minimalism equally inspired by Stravinsky that have become his trademark. Andriessen is also well known for resisting composing for the classical orchestra for aesthetic reasons. Here he adds electric guitar and bass guitar and calls for a reduced string cohort, making the scoring like that used for a film orchestra. Harp and piano (doubling celesta) also play important roles. Esa-Pekka Salonen presents the correct approach to this hybrid instrumentation, foregrounding edgy attacks and adopting energetic tempos that banish any recourse to sentimentality. As valedictions go, “The Only One” is an eloquent summary of a composer’s life and work. 

 

A More Attractive Way

IST

Rhodri Davies, prepared harp; Simon H. Fell, prepared double bass; Mark Wastell, prepared cello

Confront Core Series 5XCD

 

Improvising String Trio’s scintillating interplay is captured on A More Attractive Way, a generous boxed set of live performances from 1996-2000 in the UK. All three members of IST use preparations, so that at times they challenge the listener to recognize the players among a “super instrument” of effects. Harpist Rhodri Davies, bassist Simon H. Fell, and cellist Mark Wastell are chronicled at the outset of their collaboration at a gig in London, which is followed by performances in Barclay, Norwich, and Cambridge. Already compelling at the outset, it is fascinating how the group’s dynamic and their collective sense of pacing and shaping extended materials evolves to an almost extrasensory level by the conclusion of the quintuple CD set. Free improvisation at the highest level. 

 

Canoni Circolari

Aldo Clementi

Kathryn Williams, flutes; Joe Richards, percussion; Mira Benjamin, violins; Mark Knoop, piano

All That Dust D/L

 

Italian composer Aldo Clementi (1925-2011) made the venerable procedure of canonic writing seem fresh again with the unconventional instrumentation of his work Canoni Circolari (2006). Alongside three other process-driven and relatively compact pieces, the listener is treated to Clementi’s passion for patterning ranging from clocks to chess, to canons from all periods of music. On Overture, Kathryn Williams overdubs a whorl of scalar passages in proportional rhythm for a dozen flutes in different shapes and sizes.

Percussionist Joe Richards and pianist Mark Knoop create a Westminster Abbey level of clangor on the mimicked bell-changing of l’Orologio di Arcevia. Mira Benjamin overdubs eight violins, once again in polytempo relationships to each other, on Melanconia. The whole quartet interprets the enigmatically notated titled work, a canon with interpretation left open about which parts are taken by whom and when to stop. When is the circle broken? In three minutes – one could imagine even more. How often does one say that about a round? 

 

Tulpa

Curtis K. Hughes 

New Focus Recordings

Curtis K. Hughes’s second portrait CD was released this year on New Focus;  the programmed works span from 1995 to 2017. There is craft-filled consistency from the earliest to most recent works, with the principle change being an ever more assured compositional voice and a major work in Tulpa, a 2017 piece for ensemble. Tulpa is engaging throughout, and seems to be a culmination of the other, smaller, compositions on the CD. Whether for soloists or writ large, Hughes writes compelling music that is artfully crafted and energetically appealing.

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, jazz

Best of 2021: ECM Recordings

Parker Quartet; Kim Kashkashian, viola

György Kurtág: Six moments musicaux; Officium breve

Antonin Dvořák: String Quintet op. 97

ECM Records

 

The Czech composer Antonin Dvořák (1844-1901) and Hungarian composer György Kurtág (1926-) are seldom mentioned in the same breath. One is more often likely to hear Dvořák being discussed in relation to his older colleague Johannes Brahms, and a similar pairing might be made between Kurtág and György Ligeti. However, they are paired by the Parker Quartet and violist Kim Kashkashian on a 2021 ECM CD. 

 

While their musical languages are worlds apart, connections between Dvořák and Kurtág, both as composers and teachers, might be found in their shared affinity for chamber music. The Parker Quartet and Kashkashian (who has recorded both Kurtág and Ligeti for ECM), provide a fitting approach to each piece on the recording.  In the Kurtág  selections, they make the most of the silences, extreme shifts of demeanor, and the aphoristic fragility of the often Webernian approach to line. This contrasts nicely with the warmly expressive interpretation they give to Dvořák’s String Quintet, op. 97. Written during his visit to America, it is one of Dvořák’s finest chamber pieces. Compelling playing and imaginative curation here.

 

Ayumi Tanaka Trio

Subaqueous Silence

Ayumi Tanaka, piano; Christian Meaas Svendsen, double bass; Per Oddvar Johansen, drums

ECM Records

 

Pianist Ayumi Tanaka makes her leader debut on ECM Records with Subaqueous Silence, a trio recording alongside bassist Christian Meaas Svendsen, who makes his label debut, and drummer Per Oddvar Johansen, who has recorded with a number of ECM’s other artists. Tanaka moved to Norway because she found the improvised music being made there compelling. She fits right with her colleagues in the trio, but also brings the sensibility of, as she describes it, “chamber music … Japanese classical music,” to create a distinctive sound and approach. Her use of space, with silences and pianissimo passages prominent in the texture, is counterbalanced by arpeggiations rife with dissonance and bass note stabs. Indeed, in places one wonders if Kurtág (see above), might be a touchstone. Elsewhere, her harmonies oscillate between jazz and extended chords that seem borrowed from early in the twentieth century; Tanaka certainly has Debussy and Schoenberg under her hands. Svendson is a study in opposites as well, grounding the harmony with slow-moving bass notes, and playing raucous high harmonics in a few places. His arco playing is quite attractive. Johansen is a perfect percussionist for this setting, subtle, responsive, and more textural than propulsive. One hopes this is the beginning of a long term collaboration for these three talented improvisers. 

 

Eberhard Weber

Once Upon a Time

ECM Records

 

On Once Upon a Time, Bassist Eberhard Weber is captured in a live performance from 1994 at Avignon’s Théâtre des Halles, part of a festival celebrating bassists organized by Barre Phillips. Weber explores a number of his then recently recorded works, including ensemble pieces such as his Trio for Bassoon and Bass, deconstructing and reanimating them in this solo setting. One of the ways that he accomplishes this is by using delay pedals to create five-second loops, over which he adds additional voices. Weber often opts for a clean sound, but allows for some timbral modifications around the edges, again via pedals. These are particularly surprising in the one standard on the CD, “My Favorite Things,” which is given the overdub treatment; particularly rousing riffs and squalling notes from the highest register appear over the chordal vamp. Another standout is the extended workout Weber gives to his piece “Pendulum,” with an attractive melody and variation after variation explored throughout the compass of the instrument. “Delirium” explores chords and harmonics in equal measure, while “Ready out There” is a feast of virtuosity. 

Marc Johnson

Overpass

ECM Records

 

For an entirely different kind of solo bass recording, Marc Johnson plays originals and others’ compositions significant to his work from throughout his career on double bass. Thus, “Love Theme from Spartacus” recalls his work in 1970 with Bill Evans’ last trio, as does a welcome return to his showcase “Nardis.” Both of these have grown in conception and are thoughtfully reinvestigated. The oft recorded “Freedom Jazz Dance,” by Eddie Harris, elicits a polyphonic performance with a low-register ostinato and florid soloing in the cello register. Among Johnson’s own compositions, particularly impressive is “Strike Each Tuneful String,” which references the African instrument with ox tendon strings called the Inanga. It features a melody in the low register complemented by chordal harmonics. The exoticism of “Samurai Fly,” a reworking of Johnson’s eighties tune “Samurai Hee-Haw,” features Asian exoticism in a more overt tip of the hat to nonwestern musical material. It also includes a small amount of overdubbing, more subtle than Weber’s looping but just as effective. “Yin and Yang” instead plays with using four-string strumming to create a thickened texture, while the closer “Whorled Whirled World,” appropriate to the title, features circular patterning that resembles double time walking with a splash of minimalism tossed in for good measure. A varied and compelling outing that will occupy a well-deserved spot among ECM’s collection of solo bass recordings. 

 

Andrew Cyrille Quartet

The News 

ECM Records

David Virelles, piano; Bill Frisell, guitar; Ben Street, bass; Andrew Cyrille, drums and percussion

 

Andrew Cyrille is now an octogenarian, an age at which many musicians have already retired or are slowing down. Cyrille retains a superlative technique and while his latest quartet outing for ECM, The News, emphasizes interplay and texture over power, it is clear that there is much of that yet remaining in the drummer’s arsenal as well. 

 

Cyrille is credited with three of the compositions on The News. The title track was originally a solo percussion piece. Recast for the quartet, it is the most experimental sounding piece on the album. David Virelles plays synth as well as his usual instrument, the piano, Ben Street plays the bass both arco and pizzicato, guitarist Bill Frisell daubs dissonance and darting linear flurries here and there, and Cyrille employs a number of drums and percussion instruments in a spell binding, unorthodox fashion. The drummer places newspaper over the snare and toms and plays with brushes: an intriguing timbral choice. “The Dance of the Nuances,” co-authored by Cyrille with the group’s pianist David Virelles, features bowed bass and single line solos punctuated by Cyrille’s syncopated drumming.

 

Three pieces are credited to Frisell. “Go Happy Lucky” is a mid tempo blues bounce that is jubilant in tone. Frisell plays the head and the first solo section in jaunty fashion, followed by succulent arpeggiations  from Virelles. Cyrille’s drumming is propulsive and responsive to the melodic gestures of the soloists. Street plays walking lines that lead to the return of the head, this time with the whole group digging in and matching Frisell. “The Mountain” begins with a simple melody and chord progression played by Frisell. Gradually, it becomes more chromatic and embellished as Virelles and Street push the guitarist’s material outside. Cyrille adds a counter rhythm that also complicates the piece’s surface. “Baby” is one of Frisell’s pastoral Americana style pieces. His honeyed melody is supplied counterpoint by Street, Fender Rhodes comping from Virelles, and subdued drumming by Cyrille. Virelles contributes the composition “Incienso,” which has an ambling melody and an intricate chord structure filled with Brazilian allusions and polytonal reference points. 

 

The one piece used by a musician outside the group is “Leaving East of Java” by Steve Colson. This is a felicitous inclusion. A performer, composer, and educator, it is unfortunate that Colson’s work isn’t better known today. “Leaving East of Java” includes guitar and piano in octaves and intricate chords rolled by Virelles. Synthetic scales evoke the exoticism, if not the specific content, of Javanese gamelan. Partway through, Street takes a suave solo succeeded by florid playing from Frisell and a repeated riff from Virelles. The pianist then plummets into the bass register, placing quick scalar passages underneath Street’s legato playing. The octaves return briefly to punctuate the piece’s close. 

 

The final composition, “With You in Mind” by Cyrille, features the drummer intoning a spoken word introduction of an original poem. The main section of the piece starts as a duo, with Virelles and Street creating a gently lilting ambience with traditional harmonies and rhythmic gestures that reflect the poetry (it would be great to see this poem set with the tune for singers). A piquant piano chord invites Frisell and Virelles to join the proceedings, with the guitarist creating an arrangement of the tune with chordal embellishments and Cyrille imparting the time with graceful poise. It ends in a whorl of chordal extensions and soft cymbal sizzle. 

 

Jazz players and audiences alike are often seeking “new standards” to canonize. There are several tunes here that qualify. The News is one of our Best of 2021 recordings. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

 

 

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, CDs, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?

Best of 2021: Recording of the Year

Number Pieces

John Cage

Apartment House

Another Timbre 4XCD boxed set

 

John Cage’s Number Pieces, late compositions (from 1987-1992) are given two designations, a number indicating the size of the ensemble and a superscript indicating its order in multiple pieces for the same-sized grouping (Quintet #2 = 52). Fragments of pitches, sometimes single notes, are indicated; dynamics appear sporadically. Rhythm is codified through the use of “time brackets,” indicating how long before a performer can move to another fragment. Most of the pieces are for a particular instrumentation, although a few are unspecified. Thus, while a considerable amount of interpretation remains in the performers’ hands, Number Pieces are less aleatoric than many of Cage’s works from the 1950s to the early 1980s. Commentators have likened some of them to Morton Feldman’s compositions, as both regularly employ soft dynamics and slow tempi, with gradually evolving pitch collections accumulating into pointillist harmonies. While none of these pieces approach a pitch center, in addition to the numerous dissonances one might expect in a Cage piece, it is notable how many minor and major thirds appear in the texture.

 

Apartment House has recorded a quadruple CD set, released on Another Timbre, of all the number pieces for medium ensembles (from 5 up to 14). It includes some alternative versions and one of the “4” pieces. The group has previously released benchmark recordings on Another Timbre of other New York School repertoire and that of the Wandelweiser Collective, and are thus well-seasoned for this project. If anything, Apartment House surpasses expectations, making much of the subtle distinctions between pieces while presenting a comprehensive collection imbued with Cage’s late musical sensibilities. Excellent liner notes by label owner Simon Reynell help to put Number Pieces into perspective. Quotes from Cage’s late interviews, talks, and writings are edifying in and of themselves, and support the manner that Apartment House has inhabited the Number Pieces they interpret. John Cage: Number Pieces is Sequenza 21’s Recording of the Year.

-Christian Carey

 

 

 

by Christian Carey