Hearing Landscapes Hearing Icescapes Lei Liang New Focus Recordings From 2012-2022, composer Lei Liang did a residency at the Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego, where he is a full professor. At Qualcomm, Liang worked with scientists in a variety of disciplines – software developers, robotic engineers, material scientists, cultural heritage engineers, and oceanographers – to infuse his music with ecological and ethnographic elements. The result, Hearing Landscapes Hearing Icescapes, are two electronic works that incorporate samples, folk songs, and a few live musicians. Hearing Landscapes is an homage to Huang Binhong (1865-1955), a gifted landscape painter. The audio
Read moreNo Cosmos -You iii Everything Else (Lighter than Air) Montreal-based trumpeter Scott Bevins has played in the band Busty and the Bass and collaborated with Pierre Kwenders and the collective Moonshine. You iii Everything Else is the debut of his No Cosmos project, which combines fusion-inflected jazz with experimental electronica. “Watercolor Ghost” is propelled by a circular electric piano riff with high soprano Sarah Rossy scat-singing on top of it. Bevins and saxophonist Evan Shay continue with the tune, lightly adorned here and there, but emphasizing basic contours of the melody. Drummer Kyle Hutchins creates economic, flowing grooves that
Read moreChamber Music from Hell Chris Opperman Chris Opperman, Synclavier, piano Kurt Morgan, programming, electric bass Mike Keneally, electric guitar Ryan Brown, drum set Jason Camelio, trombone Brianna Tagliaferro, cello Marco Minnemann, drum set The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble (Peter Jarvis, Payton MacDonald, Mike Aberback, Paul Carroll) Ursula Joy Opperman, Synclavier Purple Cow Records When you have two Synclavier players on a recording that begins with a comic spoken introduction (“Where is Everybody?” – these reappear periodically in a robotic voice), it is tempting to suggest that the composer, Chris Opperman, must be writing a post-Zappa homage. Without
Read moreRadical Romantics Fever Ray Mute It has been nearly six years since Plunge, Karin Dreijer’s last album under the moniker Fever Ray. Equally well known for their band The Knife, on which they collaborate with their brother Olof Dreijer, Karin has made distinctive electronic music for over twenty years. Their latest, Radical Romantics, is a welcome return. In gestation since 2019, it is some of the finest work released by the Fever Ray project. Another welcome return is one of collaboration. Olof helped to produce some of the recording and co-wrote four of the songs, the first collaboration
Read moreSteve Reich: The String Quartets Mivos Quartet Deutsche Grammophon Steve Reich wrote his three string quartets for the Kronos Quartet, who have premiered, recorded (for Nonesuch), and continued to champion them. With Kronos still active, why does another quartet record these pieces? Mivos Quartet makes a strong case that there is room for other interpretations of Reich’s string quartets. I remember well being at the Carnegie Hall premiere of Steve Reich’s piece for string quartet and multimedia WTC 9/11, performed by Kronos Quartet. Its incorporation of sound recordings, a dead phone line, air traffic controllers, and those trying
Read moreAndrew Mcintosh Little Jimmy Yarn/Wire Kairos Composer and sound recordist Andrew Mcintosh has worked with Yarn/Wire, a quartet of two pianos and two percussionists, for over a decade, and this Kairos portrait CD demonstrates their keen musical connection. The title work references a special scene: recordings of Rosenita Saddle in Angeles National Forest, where Mcintosh routinely walked. It has since been ravaged by damage from wildfires. Sounds from wildlife, particularly wind, birds, and crunching underfoot during nature walks, connect Little Jimmy’s title work and solo piano piece “I Have a Lot to Learn” with feelings of the loss of the
Read moreTyondai Braxton Telekinesis Nonesuch/New Amsterdam Telekinesis is Tyondai Braxton’s largest piece to date. It is inspired in part by the Japanese manga classic Akira, the story of a young boy’s discovery of his telekinetic powers and the disaster that ensues. Commissioned by the Southbank Centre in London and Musica Nova Helsinki Festival, Telekinesis is scored for electric guitars, orchestra, choir, and electronics. It is the latter that Braxton has thus far been associated with, but Telekinesis includes large sections of notated music, blending with the electronics to make thickly layered amalgams. The performers on the Nonesuch/New Amsterdam recording
Read moreJack Curtis Dubowsky has been a familiar presence in Los Angeles contemporary music for many years. He may be best known for his original scores for vintage silent films, as well as for performing them live while projecting the movies in various outdoor venues around town. Dubowsky has also scored feature films, orchestral and chamber works, as well as choral music including the acclaimed Harvey Milk: A Cantata. He is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the author of three books. Bolsa Chica Calm is Dubowsky’s latest electro-acoustic album, and he writes that this music
Read moreChristopher Trapani Horizontal Drift New Focus Records Christopher Trapani’s latest portrait recording for New Focus features pieces for solo instruments, several with electronics. The composer’s work with microtones and hybrid tuning systems is spotlighted. Trapani has a compendious knowledge of microtonality, and he brings it to bear eloquently in the programmed pieces. The album’s opener, Târgul, is written for vioara cu goarna, a Romanian variant on the stroh violin, a violin with an added horn to provide greater projection. It also can provide fascinating timbres, as Maximilian Haft’s performance illuminates. Dan Lippel plays the title track on
Read moreCold Blue Music has released Houses of the Wind, a new album of electro-acoustic music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams. This was inspired by a 1989 recording of Alaskan arctic winds blowing through an aeolian harp. In listening to that original recording again, John Luther Adams writes: “The voices of the wind singing through the strings of the harp brought back vividly the clarity of light, the sprawling space, and the sense of possibility I had felt.” The recent pandemic lock down presented Adams with the studio time to electronically reshape the recording and the result is a
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