CD Review

Best of, CD Review, Choral Music, early music, File Under?

Best of 2021: Holiday Music

Hodie Christus Natus Est

Boston Camerata, Anne Azéma

Harmonia Mundi CD

 

A trio of female singers accompanied by hurdy gurdy, harp, rebec, and bells present a diverse program of medieval Christmas music in English, Latin, Italian, Iberian, and French. Plainsong hymns, responses, carols, and dances, all by anonymous sources, are performed with impeccable sound, blend, and tuning and an impressive variety of approaches. Some of the music is intoned as chant while other pieces are metricized. This repertoire would not have appeared together in a single performance, especially given the blend of sacred and secular pieces, but Hodie Christus Natus Est is a rich program that displays historically informed performance at its very finest.

 

A Mexican Christmas

The Newberry Consort | Ellen Hargis, David Douglass directors

EnsAmble Ad-Hoc | Francy Acosta, José Luis Posada directors

Navona Records CD

 

Much like composers from Spain in the first half of the seventeenth century, Mexican composers during the same time period adhered to the “prima pratica” principles exemplified in sixteenth century Italy, most notably by Palestrina. They may have been latecomers to Baroque musical practices, but tarrying with earlier contrapuntal styles resulted in an extravagant coda to music of the Renaissance.

 

A Mexican Christmas is a live recording of Christmas music performed by the Newberry Consort and Ensemble Ad-Hoc. Rather than focusing on Mexican liturgical music, of which there is also a significant repertory, the main emphasis of the program is extra liturgical and secular music, including stirring instrumental selections by Santiago de Murcia. If one is unfamiliar with the composers Juan Guitierrez de Padilla, Gaspar Fernandes, and Juan Garcia Despedes, the selections here provide an excellent introduction to this underserved repertoire.

 

In the Bleak Midwinter: Christmas Carols from King’s

Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, Daniel Hyde

King’s College, Cambridge CD

 

Every year, I think that the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge has arrived at the pinnacle of presenting Christmas carols. In 2021, they once again prove that they have even more room to climb. In the Bleak Midwinter features fresh approaches to arrangements and descants, talented soloists, memorable organ solos, and selections from corners of the repertoire, old and new, that merit more attention. Director Daniel Hyde does an admirable job musically and curatorially, favoring a lithe approach to phrasing and tempo that prevents the schmaltz that ruins so many recordings of carols. Organist Matthew Hyde supplies a colorful yet balanced array of textures when accompanying the choir. His performance of “Improvisation on Adeste Fideles,” by Francis Pott, supplies a memorable postlude to the proceedings. My favorite carol is Holst’s “In the Bleak Midwinter,” and the rendition here is practically peerless.

 

-Christian Carey

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

Best of 2021: BMOP plays Piston and Barber

Walter Piston: Concerto for Orchestra 

Variations on a Theme of Edward Burlingame Hill, Divertimento, Clarinet Concerto

Michael Nosworthy, clarinet

Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose, conductor

BMOP/sound CD

 

Samuel Barber: Medea

Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Medea (complete ballet), A Hand of Bridge

Kristen Watson, soprano; Matthew DiBattista, tenor; Angela Gooch, soprano, David Kravitz, baritone, Krista River, mezzo-soprano; Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose, conductor

BMOP/sound CD

 

Although the Boston Modern Orchestra Project has undertaken commissioning and recording music from our time, another important part of their mission has been reviving symphonists from mid-century America. Two recordings spotlighting music from the 1930s to the 1960s stood out this year. Many may know Walter Piston (1894-1976) as a teacher of composition and author of music textbooks (Harmony, Orchestration, etc.), but during his lifetime he was in demand as a composer of chamber and orchestra music. BMOP’s recordings of four of his ensemble works are Exhibit One of the substantial pieces of evidence that his work is worthy of revival. The earliest, and largest piece on the recording is 1933’s Concerto for Orchestra, following Hindemith’s 1925 work, both in terms of overall design but also the degree to which the piece features many instruments of the orchestra in solo turns. It is also a masterclass in canonic counterpoint. Piston evokes Stravinsky as well by recycling the “Psalm chords” from Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms (which had been written just three years prior) in identical spacing and scoring. Variations on a Theme of Edward Burlingame Hill was written for a Massachusetts municipal orchestra and would be an excellent programming choice for today’s educational and community ensembles. 

 

Divertimento, for Nine Instruments, showcases Piston’s proclivity for chamber forces. Once again, Stravinsky’s neoclassicism is a touchstone: one might think of this as the Octet plus one. The standout work is the late Clarinet Concerto (1967). Cleverly shaped, it is cast in four attacca movements with several cadenzas and interludes featuring the soloist. Piston acknowledges the clarinet literature from Brahms’ sonatas to Benny Goodman, providing a challenging and varied showcase. Soloist Michael Nosworthy plays superlatively, navigating challenging registral changes and elegantly sculpting the rhythms of the cadenza material. BMOP is at its best here too; Rose brings out the various countermelodies embedded in the score while deftly supporting the soloist throughout.

 

There are plenty of opportunities, live and on recording, to hear Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (1947) by Samuel Barber (1910-1981); this year proved there is room for another. BMOP’s rendition is excellent, with fluid, but not languid, tempos and delicate, detailed singing from soprano Kristen Watson. Watson is joined by singers soprano Angela Gooch, mezzo-soprano Krista River, tenor Mathew DiBattista, and baritone Kravitz in A Hand of Bridge, a ten-minute long piece from 1959 that has become an opera training center staple. It is refreshing to hear it performed with such professionalism, and here Rose elicits a jaunty swagger from BMOP’s musicians. 

 

Posterity has been less kind to Barber’s ballet Medea. Composed in 1947, the same year as Knoxville, it is a bit edgier than his other works but remains within the spectrum of neoclassical tonality for which he is best known. The orchestration is vivid, with excellent solo writing for winds and brilliant chorales for brass in particular, witness the opening solo of the “Dance of Vengeance.” There is a “re-tunable moment” or two in the strings, but otherwise the performance is eminently assured. The rhythmic vivacity of Medea is particularly memorable, part mixed meter writing with just a hint of Hollywood filtered jazz around the edges. I would love to see a dance performance of it. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?

Best of 2021: Electronic

 

Supermundane 

John Thayer

Self-released

 

Far In

Helado Negro

4AD

 

Weightless (10 hour version)

Signals

Marconi Union

Just Music

 

Changing Landscapes (Isle of Eigg)

Arthur King

AKP

 

Fast Idol

Black Marble

Sacred Bones

 

 

Ookii Gekkou

Vanishing Twin

Fire Records

 

John Thayer is a musician who wears many hats: composer, audio engineer, sound artist, and percussionist. He has played with a host of new music performers, including Zeena Parkins, Daniel Carter, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Kato Hideki, Ezra Feinberg, Arp, Robbie Lee,  Jeff Tobias, and Jim Pugliese. It is his work with Arp that is likely best known, and Thayer’s solo release Supermundane is an extension of that project, incorporating mallet percussion, field recordings, and synthesis into a varied yet cohesive whole. “Strata” is a succinct curtain-raiser that introduces both ambient and fourth world elements. It leads attacca into “Akaku,” which features polyrhythmic percussion, synth bass put in a lead role, and treated drums. The title track is a catchy yet intricately constructed piece, with a syncopated riff that overlaps bass instruments and a busy adornment of marimba alongside industrial field recordings. The longer tracks, “Kimyoin” and “Veil,” use similar elements but add slowly morphing synths to build accreting formal designs. 

 

Percussion plays an enhanced role in Helado Negro’s Far In, his first LP since moving from Brooklyn to North Carolina. Just as Roberto Carlos Lang wanted to provide himself more space in his day-to-day life than the hustle bustle of New York would allow, Far In seems more spacious in its arrangements and expressive character. The undergirding of electronica with drum ‘n bass textures and layered vocals makes for a winning blend of materials. “Hometown Dream” features melodic bass-lines, a funk-inspired chord progression on electric piano, and fluid vocals. Upon hearing “Gemini and Leo,” the listener will likely be toe-tapping and humming along for the rest of the day. Benamin supplies ardent chorus vocals on “Telescope;” Kacy Hill and Buscabulla also make guest appearances on the ballads “Wake Up Tomorrow” and “Agosto.” 

 

This year, Taylor Swift releasing a ten-minute version of the song “All too Well” was considered remarkable, but what about a ten-hour long track? Marconi Union consulted with sound therapists to create a nightlong version of their piece “Weightless.” Designed to help with relaxation, sleep, and even to lower your blood pressure, “Weightless” is ambient electronica’s version of a cozy blanket. The band’s 2021 album, Signals, has a different approach, once again foregrounding percussion in a musical celebration of powerful progenitors such as Jaki Liebezeit, Clive Deamer, and Tony Allen. Propulsive yet still retaining the Marconi Union’s melodic forward sound, it is a case of a fine band prioritizing musical growth.

 

Grandaddy’s Jason Lyttle collaborated with LA collective Arthur King on their latest Changing Landscapes project, for which the band visited Scotland’s Isle of Eigg this year. The results of their field recordings and improvised synth responses created a compelling half hour of music that combines concrete sensibilities with minimal ostinatos. Particularly compelling is the use of spoken word in counterpoint on “An Sgurr” and water as a layered backdrop on “Laig Beach.” Isle of Eigg was featured as part of KCRW’s “A Day of Serenity” and, during the spring, a documentary about the project was screened at Grand Park’s Our LA Voices 2021 alongside a gallery installation that ran in Los Angeles. This type of immersive, interdisciplinary approach befits Arthur King’s imaginative, process based, and location driven work.

 

Black Marble is the stage name for Chris Stewart, an artist smitten with eighties synth pop. Fast Idol, his 2021 Sacred Bones recording, doesn’t merely replicate the sound world of FM synths and drum machines. Instead, Black Marble stretches out several of his songs past the eighties’ single terrain of three minutes, at times into five and six minute long pieces that feature winsome interludes and off-kilter structures. Check out the lead off track “Somewhere” for a case in point. Hooks abound amid the solos, with “Bodies” and “Try” supplying particularly memorable melodies. Stewart’s previous album was a Best of 2020 release, and Fast Idol is even better. 

 

Ookii Gekkou (meaning ‘big moonlight’ in Japanese), is Vanishing Twin’s “lockdown album,” that the band thought of as a “dream catcher for the madness.” Instead of shouting into the darkness, Vanishing Twin decided dystopian dance was in order. Field recordings, bells, and tasty riffs from guitars and synths populate Ookii Gekkou’s ornate arrangements. Influences abound: disco, Afro-futurist jazz, twee pop, space sounds, and synth pop. Highly recommended. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Best of 2021: Three Recordings Featuring Matthew Shipp (CD Review)

Codebreaker

Matthew Shipp

TAO Forms CD

Village Mothership

Whit Dickey, drums; William Parker, bass Matthew Shipp, piano; 

TAO Forms CD

Procedural Language CD

Live at SESC Blu-ray DVD

Ivo Perelman, saxophones; Matthew Shipp, piano

SMP boxed set

 

In both solo and group settings, Pianist Matthew Shipp has continued to prolifically record in 2021. His collaborations with longtime partners, drummer Whit Dickey and bassist William Parker on Village Mothership, and Procedural Language, a celebration of his two-decade musical odyssey with saxophonist Ivo Perelman, are scintillating reminders of Shipp’s development of a fluid musical language that adapts to different scenarios. In these, he simultaneously suits and provokes the playing of his colleagues. In turn, Dickey, Parker, and Perelman bring out some of the best in Shipp. Over the years, their work has been formative in creating captivating examples of ecstatic jazz, as evidenced by the three CDs featured here, which are among our selections for Best of 2021. 

 

A feature on the solo release Codebreaker is rapid shifting between surface rhythmic patterns while keeping the same underlying tempo structure. This is particularly evident on “Spider Web,” where right-hand oscillations and trills mimic the knitting activity associated with the title. Just as one begins to forget where the downbeat resides, Shipp supplies a deft reminder with a brief chordal and walking bass texture, revealing that the melody has ventured afar. We hear this too on “A Thing and Nothing,” the opening piece on Village Mothership, where in the midst of a steady midtempo articulated by the rhythm section, Shipp adopts solo breaks of propulsive angularity that fit odd groupings into the meter. Similarly, “Track 5” of Procedural Language features Perelman and Shipp playing melodic gestures with different sets of syncopations, Perelman starting his gesture after a rest off the beat and Shipp eventually moving from a dueling melodic role to chordal punctuations and swinging bass register interpolations. Independent rhythmic activity, either between the hands or among groups of musicians, is one of the hallmarks of free/ecstatic playing. It is the level of sophistication and interaction that these players can accomplish that suggests the language is ever-evolving. In this Dickey is simply a marvel. When one compares earlier recordings to his current approach, it is clear that he has reinvented his role behind the kit with poly-limbed polyrhythms abounding.

 

The aforementioned rapid juxtapositions in rhythm are joined by corresponding contrasts of harmonic color and melodic inventiveness. Dickey and Parker are involved in customary rhythm section roles, but they telegraph and respond to melodic material in such a way as to make the trio texture seamless. The voicings Shipp picks are often made more intricate by bass note choices from Parker. The two often engage in duets between multiple bass lines, one by Parker and another by Shipp, which anchor the music and allow that register a sense of melodic as well as harmonic import. The duets Perelman and Shipp engage in often resonate with overtone series upper partials that create a series of polychords against the grounding of the bass register. Perelman’s addition of microtones to the mix also involves bending notes in bluesy fashion and alluding to nonwestern music with complex scalar passages. Shipp has incorporated 20th century classical harmonies into his playing for years. There is no more eloquent example of this than on Codebreaker’s “Suspended,” a memorable ballad in Schoenbergian style.

 

The Procedural Languages set also includes an hourlong DVD of the duo live in San Paolo at SESC and a thoughtful booklet essay about their artistic partnership by Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg. Many Perelman/Shipp recordings have been made, but a document with video and discussion of their work puts this at the top of the list. Likewise, A Village Mothership captures the go-to trio for ecstatic jazz at the height of their powers. Finally, Codebreaker reveals that Shipp is capable of topping himself with inquisitiveness, imagination, and superlative technique. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Best of 2021: John and Alice Coltrane reissues

Best of 2021: A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle and Alice Coltrane’s Kirtan: Turiya Sings

 

Fifty-six years after its release, John Coltrane’s recording of his suite A Love Supreme has been certified platinum by the RIAA. With the lauded release of the recently rediscovered tapes of A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle, renewed interest has moved the recording of the original to this distinguished sales standard. The Live in Seattle version expands the personnel from the classic Coltrane Quartet to include saxophonists Pharaoh Sanders and Carlos Ward, and a second double bassist Donald Garrett. Thought some outlets have criticized the bass response on the recording, on my rig the vinyl versions sounds excellent. Several interludes augment the original suite with improvised solos.

We have Joe Brazil to thank for recording the 1965 gig at Seattle’s The Penthouse, and saxophonist Steve Griggs for rediscovering the tapes from which this vital recording was made. 

 

The original version of Alice Coltrane’s album of spiritual songs, released in 1982, had a fuller instrumentation. In 2004, Ravi Coltrane discovered alternate mixes that instead just featured Alice’s voice and Wurlitzer organ. These are intimate, simple, and emotionally resonant versions of the material on the album and it was wise to reissue it. The songs combine bluesy chord voices with gospel and Carnatic singing in eloquent synchronicity.

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, Chamber Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?

Best of 2021 – Burned into the Orange by Peter Gilbert (CD Review)

Burned into the Orange

Music of Peter Gilbert

Arditti String Quartet; Iridium Quartet, Emmanuele Arciuli, piano; et al. 

New Focus Records CD/DL

 

This is composer Peter Gilbert’s second recording for New Focus; the first was back in 2008, The Long Arch of Undreamt Things. He is Associate Professor of Music at University of New Mexico, and has a long artistic pedigree filled with prestigious residencies, performances, and awards. There is a visceral character in Gilbert’s music that distinguishes it, and in his recent music it appears that geography plays as much of a role as any of the aforementioned experiences. The searing heat of the summer sun in the Southwest, the beauty of its flora and fauna, and the changes of light against mountain streams are all analogous to the diverse array of instrumental colors that Gilbert brings to bear. 

 

A case in point is Intermezzo: Orange into Silver, which Gilbert synesthetically describes as depicting the oranges inspired by the New Mexico landscape moving to a metallic silver, “…a kind of astral wind that ultimately settles into another of the Rilke-inspired clouds of breath.” A plethora of timbres are contained within these broad strokes, belying the piece’s three-minute duration with a varied splendor of synthetic sounds. Elsewhere the approach is more distilled. Arditti String Quartet plays deconstructed double stops with furious intensity on The Voice Opens Wide to Forget That Which You Are Singing. A live recording by basset recorder player Jeremias Schwarzer with electronics by Gilbert, The Palm of Your Hand Touches My Body is the most extended piece on the album and also its most engaging, challenging the listener to locate whether particular sounds emanate from the recorder or the electronics throughout: a satisfying game of musical hide and seek. Wave Dash, Camilla Hoetenga, flute and Magdalena Meitzner, percussion, perform Channeling the Waters, which seems to encompass more whitecaps than burbling brooks. 

 

Standout Soon as the Sun Forsook the Eastern Main features the pianist Emmanuele Arculi in a close-miked series of corruscating arpeggios, which is succeeded by electronic interpolations of synthetic harmonic series and polytonal verticals. Thunderous bass notes are set against a shimmering upper register electronic drone, all added to the mix of verticals. Another layer, of sampled vocalize, moves the piece still further toward the ethereal. One gets a foreshadowing of the electronics, at least its approach, in Meditation upon the Awakening of the Spirit, placed earlier on the disc. Upon the Awakening, another piece for electronics and live performers, in this case the Iridium Quartet (who are saxophonists) also explores spectral series, including detuned upper partials, and disjunct yet lyrical melodic material. By the Lonely Traveller’s Call for tuba with amplified mute supplies a unique palette of sounds and engaging formal design. Gilbert is a consummate craftsman with an unerring ear for textures, both electronic and acoustic. Recommended. 

 

  • Christian Carey
by Christian Carey
CD Review, Choral Music, early music, File Under?

Josquin 500 Part Two

Josquin 500 Part Two

The Josquin Legacy

Gesualdo Six

Harmonia Mundi CD

In Principio

De Labyrintho, Walter Tesolin

Baryton CD

Josquin Desprez

The Renaissance Master – Sacred Music and Chansons

Cappella Amsterdam, Daniel Reuss

Ensemble Clément Janequin, Ensemble Organum, Marcel Pérès

Ensemble Les Eléments, 

Ensemble Clément Janequin, Dominique Visse

Huelgas-Ensemble, Paul Van Nevel

La Chapelle Royale, Philippe Herreweghe

Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier

Harmonia Mundi 3xCD

Josquin and the Franco-Flemish School

Ensemble Gille Binchois

Kings Singers

Early Music Consort of London

Hilliard Ensemble

Warner Classics 34XCD boxed set

Josquin – Baisiez Moy

thélème, Jean-Christophe Groffe 

Aparté CD

 

These releases commemorating the 500th anniversary of Josquin’s death take different, but equally diverting, approaches to assessing the composer’s legacy. They demonstrate the flexibility of approaches possible in interpreting the composer’s work. 

 

Carlo Gesualdo and Josquin Desprez are worlds apart, in terms of musical language, personality, and chronology, but they share a particular coincidence of geography: both of them had formative musical experiences in Ferrara. Thus, it seemed natural for the Gesualdo Six to center their program The Josquin Legacy around Josquin’s brief but fruitful tenure in the d’Este court in 1503-1504. Another linchpin of the recording is its programming of Josquin’s predecessor Johannes Ockeghem, rival Heinrich Isaac, contemporaries Pierre de la Rue, Antoine Brumel, Loyset Compere, and Antoine de Fevin, and successors Antoine Willaert and Jean Lhéritier, all of whom also had connections to the d’Este court and Ferrara. The curation is excellent, and the singing is most compelling; Gesualdo Six present a well blended, sonorous, and vibrant sound and deliver contrapuntal passages with utmost clarity. Their performance of Josquin’s Nymphe des bois, a memorial piece for Ockeghem, is one of the finest I can remember of this often-recorded masterwork. Equally compelling are their warmly hued rendition of Willaert’s Infelix Ego and plangent performance of Pierre de la Rue’s Absalom Fili Mi, a piece once attributed to Josquin that underscores the musical connections shared among composers of the Franco-Flemish School who found inspiration in their Italian sojourns. 

 

In Principio, a recording of De Labyrintho, has a warmer sound with a bit more of the room provided as ambience. The approach here is to present musical settings by Josquin of biblical and medieval texts that provide a chronology starting in Advent and ending with the infancy of Jesus, including motets about Mary, the Mother of Christ. They perform several longer pieces, including Liber generationis Jesu Christ, O Admirabile Commercium, and the album’s closer, the elegant Factum est Autem, and excel at shaping their large-scale architecture, suggesting that form coincided with local counterpoint in Josquin’s conception of motet composition. 

 

The Renaissance Master is a triple-disc set that includes several of the best early music vocal ensembles performing sacred music and chansons. The liner notes, written by Henri Vanhault, admit that in celebrating Josquin, likely misattribution of pieces to him means that a compendium like this is also celebrating like-minded contemporary composers. With the chance to compare thrilling performances by such estimable interpreters, one needn’t worry too much if all of Josquin’s catalog is sorted. With such bounty, it is difficult to pick favorites, but the Huelgas Ensemble’s performance of the 24-voice Qui Habitat is quite something, as is the Theatre of Voices’ performance of Missa Beata Virgine. La Chapelle Royale wins the prize for fastest performance on record of Ave Maria Virgo Serena. For those who want an even deeper dive and the context of a compendious collection of composers of the Franco-Flemish School of which Josquin is a part, Warner Classics has issued a 34 CD boxed set that will keep one busy visiting fifteenth and early sixteenth century music throughout the holidays and beyond. Excellent performances by estimable ensembles here too. 

 

Thélème takes a particularly novel approach to performing  Josquin’s works, including several that seldom appear on recordings,  incorporating modern instruments, such as Fender Rhodes electric piano and Buchla synthesizer, on their Aparté CD Baisiez Moy. The result is fascinating, reminding one that there were various heterogeneous ways in which these pieces were presented during the time period of their composition. Check out “Unisono 2” to hear the recording at its furthest out. Josquin’s work is durable enough to withstand and, on Baisiez Moy, flourish in imaginative renditions. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic

Jacob Cooper, Steven Bradshaw Sunrise

Sunrise is a new CD by Jacob Cooper and Steven Bradshaw, recently released by Cold Blue Music. Jacob Cooper has a long and distinguished composing career including commissions by the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, Eighth Blackbird, the Calder Quartet and others. His music has been performed by the JACK Quartet, the Minnesota Orchestra, Kathleen Supov, Timo Andres and many other well-known new music soloists and ensembles. Steven Bradshaw is a founding member of the two-time Grammy Award-winning ensemble The Crossing and has appeared with the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, Bang on a Can and the Network for New Music. Bradshaw is also a visual artist whose work has appeared in galleries around the world. Additional musicians heard on this CD were Dynasty Battles, piano, Clara Kim, violin and Timothy Munro, flute/piccolo.

Consisting of a single 32 minute track, Sunrise is a contemporary electro-acoustic update of or allusion to the classic The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise. Some of us may remember the Les Paul and Mary Ford recording from the 1950s, but it was originally composed by Ernest Seitz and Gene Lockhart over 100 years ago, during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 – 1920. The piece has subsequently had a long history of formal and popular performances by artists ranging from Fritz Kreisler to Willie Nelson. Cooper and Bradshaw collaborated back and forth on the piece over the course of the pandemic year 2020 while isolated separately in quarantine. The composers write that Sunrise emerged from a constant exchange of material: Steven would record melodies, improvisations, motifs, vocal scrapes, hisses, whispers and screams. Jacob would sonically manipulate them and generate new material, forging it all into a compositional framework.

The iterative nature of the composing process results in a layered texture that slowly changes its emotional surface as the piece unfolds. Soft buzzing and hissing open Sunrise and a series of quiet voices enter with an indistinct vocalise combined with sweet, sustained tones. What sound like male and female voices are heard separately with occasional sharp beats in the bass register. There is a prayerful, chant-like busyness of independent voices, that are active but do not share the beat. At this point there are no clear melodic clues to the popular origin of Sunrise, but there is a general sense of well-being in the vocal harmonies amid the mysterious and ritualistic feel.

At about five minutes, the bass beats are again heard, adding drama. Deep, processed male voices chanting in very low tones with unintelligible words enter, adding a faint sense of menace. By 11:00, a series of languid, interleaving vocal passages dominate that feature some really lovely harmonies and intelligible lyrics from the historical piece. The effect is soothing to the ear and full of reassurance.

By 16:00, however, strong distortion and harsh buzzing have replaced the calming vocals, and there is a clear change of emotional direction. The feeling is now more intense and mechanical while a single voice struggles to be briefly heard above the sea of harsh sounds. The darkness of pandemic and isolation seem to be descending on the world. There is little consolation here, but plenty of negative emotion. The sounds are dissonant, distorted and grating to the ear. A scattering of plaintive vocals are heard, but these are all but buried in the sonic chaos.

By 22:00 the voices fade away and the distortion becomes noticeably softer. Some light piano phrases enter as a repeating melody, becoming louder and more hopeful as the distortion diminishes. The voices now return in force, slowly chanting the familiar words of the original: Dear one, the world is waiting for the sunrise… This adds to the sense of uplift as the piano line continues to spin out its optimistic melody. Even the distortion, now much reduced, seems to be contributing to the harmony of the lyrics. With a decrescendo, the voices, piano and electronic distortion slowly fade away to finish the piece.

There have been many virtual performances in the past months as a response to the conditions imposed by the pandemic. Less common, perhaps, are collaborative works like this one that have been created while the composers are in forced separation. Sunrise is a vivid narrative of the pandemic story both then and now artfully crafted and masterfully realized.

Sunrise is available directly from Cold Blue Music, digitally from Amazon and as a CD through other music retailers.




by Paul Muller
Ambient, Best of, CD Review, File Under?

Best of 2021: Philip Blackburn and Chris Campbell (CD Review)

Best of 2021: Recordings by Philip Blackburn and Chris Campbell

 

Philip Blackburn

Justinian Intonations

Neuma CD

 

Chris Campbell

Orison

Innova LP

 

 

Both Philip Blackburn and Chris Campbell are poly-artists, sitting astride composition and sound art and working with homemade (or, in the case of Blackburn, also Partch made) instruments. In 2021, Blackburns Justinian Intonations and Campbells Orison topped the currently crowded field of ambient classical, providing long form pieces that encourage contemplative listening. It is frustrating that some quarters have tagged them with a New Age label, as their work is more intricate and, frankly, interesting than what is generally given that genre designation.

 

A sound prayer and meditation in seven parts, Campbell says of Orison that it is his version of sitting. The music is contemplative but also collaborative, made by a mixed instrumental ensemble of fourteen musicians that features some of contemporary classicals heavy hitters. There are stretches of drone, but also places of activity, melodic patterns, instrumental solos, outbursts of percussion, swelling crescendos, and glissandos. Use of instrumental layering creates beguiling sounds deftly orchestrated. The move through a number of demeanors sparks interest without ever diminishing the contemplative aspects of the work. Orison is a dazzling, refreshing, and distinctively individual composition.

 

Blackburns Justinian Intonations begins with Out Beyond, a five-minute opener featuring the wide-ranging vocalist Ryland Angel singing a translation of Rumi in scalar passages, a conch shell solo, and ambient noise such as crunching footsteps. The title work is based on the reverberation times in two ancient cisterns in Europe. A simple device – clapping in the spaces – yields information that is stretched out, spectrally analyzed, and tweaked for maximum overtone experience. The results create harmonically intricate drones that change a great deal over the course of the piece. Angels chanting is overdubbed in places to add a performative element to the proceedings. Like Orison, Blackburns music is simultaneously meditative and animated, rewarding patient and close listening with an abundance of beautiful, unreproducible sounds.

 

  • Christian Carey
by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, File Under?, Improv, jazz

Best of 2021 – Craig Taborn on ECM (CD Review)

Sequenza 21 Best of 2021

 

Craig Taborn

Shadowplay

ECM Records

 

I first became aware of pianist Craig Taborn in the early aughts, writing about him for (dearly departed) Copper Press and Signal to Noise and contributing reviews of his various outings as leader and sideperson since. In his recent playing, Taborn has displayed increasing expansiveness and interest in diversely complex formal designs. Shadowplay is a 2020 live recording of the pianist at Konzerthaus, Wien. The full hour and a quarter of it is improvised material, some pieces providing a fresh perspective on Taborns creativity.

 

The opener, Bird Templars, is representative of the frequent juxtapositions of musical techniques employed on the recording. It starts pianissimo with a repeated mid-register tremolo and a gradually unfolding melody in the lower register, then doubled in rumbling octaves. The oscillation builds into chordal tremolos with the countermelody now placed in the middle register. A repeated figure in the bass starts to define the harmony, and it builds into octave arpeggios over the tremolos, now more insistent, and then a series of close-spaced intervals, a collection that will reappear in various guises. The roles shift, with chords in the left hand and a continually repeated unison in the right. These are the building blocks for the material that ensues, with a development in which sharing of material between hands is expanded and reconsidered. The middle section finally concludes with a keyboard spanning scale with the sustain pedal held down. This is followed by a section that puts the chords in the left hand and a mournful melody in the right in a grand crescendo of activity, which dissolves into the close-spaced interval group played inverted in the left hand while thirds in the right climb upward and revert back to tremolos to close. To work out such a framework on the fly takes technical skill, contrapuntal chops, and tremendous concentration.

 

Beginning with dissonant fragments of material, Shadowplay demonstrates concern with stylistic plurality. It moves through swing time sections, ostinato arpeggiations, thick repeated chords, a passage of minimalism, and an extended coda of repeated mottos in both left and right hand that link together in polyrhythmic post-bop fashion. At the very end, the motto pops up an octave to explore the soprano register and then, abruptly, stops.

 

The listener is treated to several more long form improvisations with compositional deployment of formal design, including the pair of Discordia Concors, a Schoenbergian essay with glissandos alongside melodic angularity and Concordia Discors that more resembles the color chords of Messiaen accompanying a mercurial ballad melody, which then goes into a double time ramble. There is a build to a protracted clarion repeated unison, then slowing to a glacial version of the ballad tune. Conspiracy of Things begins with a blustery cascade of dissonances that moves into an ebullient set of bebop variations. It finishes with an accelerando of chromatic passagework over a repeated bass groove.

 

A Code with Spells brings together a bluesy ballads melodic embellishments, repeated bass riff, and imaginative chordal exploration. Here as elsewhere, many different dynamic shadings and variations of phrasing create an abundant variety of impressions. The repetition eventually spreads to the entire texture, in successive ferocious builds and then a decrescendoing denouement daring the listener to guess when it will cease. Near the end, a triplet figure inserts itself and proliferates to take over the rhythm, accelerating to an abrupt close.

 

Now in Hope finishes the concert with a gospel/bop hybrid that is the closest material to traditional jazz on Shadowplay. At its conclusion, enthusiastic applause is left untrimmed – feel free to join in.

 

by Christian Carey