Experimental Music

Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, File Under?

Kyle Bruckmann: of rivers (Recording review)

 

Kyle Bruckmann

of rivers

New Focus Recordings

 

Oboist, composer, and electronic musician Kyle Bruckmann is a dedicated advocate for contemporary concert music. One of the founding members of Splinter Reeds, he currently plays in a number of ensembles in the San Francisco Bay area, including sfSound, San Francisco Contemporary Players, and the Stockton Symphony. Bruckann teaches oboe and contemporary music at University of the Pacific. 

 

On his latest recording, Bruckmann programs a number of pieces that incorporate wildly challenging extended techniques and, in some, electronics. Bruckmann’s own Proximity, Affect features the latter, as well as deconstructed instruments. Thrumming bass and harmonics derived from it, succeeded by scraps of bleeps, bespoke instrumental interjections, and white noise open the work. Gradually, a bass passage an octave higher is introduced, along with a steady stream of repetitions. It is distressed by snippets of the middle’s material. The big bass returns only to have its ostinato hijacked by a percussive variant.

 

Jessie Cox’s AT(ou)M is a festival of multiphonics, microtones, and altissimo register playing. Its concept is the exploration of resonant spaces. The reverb imparted to the oboe attacks makes a point of this. Its concomitant idea is the exploration of the silences between attacks as they decay. This is an important component, as it invites the listener to hear the piece as more than its sounds, to experience slices of time with minimal transitions. Cox is a thoughtful composer, and AT(ou)M is a signature example of this. Here, as elsewhere, Bruckmann displays consummate technical skill, even in the most challenging elements of the score.

 

Hannah A. Barnes samples the oboe, put through a vocoder, and uses this material for the electronics part of Dis/inte/gration. The title is a good clue, as the piece begins with the foundational gesture of the tuning pitch, gradually moving away from it in sinuous scalar passages and angular leaps. The electronics arrive and begin to augment the proceedings with sounds that range from low octave grumbles to a choir of oboe glissandos. Its conclusion is described by Barnes as, “exacting change, and forcing the material to collapse in on itself, a ‘bacteria of voices.’”

 

Helen Grime used to be an oboist herself, and Arachne (spider) displays her familiarity with the instrument, particularly in her awareness of how note choices and the use of various fingerings abet artful lines. The piece has an incantatory quality, with beguiling ascending runs and cascades of trills – all seeming to weave a web of modernist counterpoint. An insistent upper note becomes an idée fixe, only to dissolve in the piece’s denouement. 

 

Drop by Linda Bouchard, for solo improviser and electronics, starts off with howling high notes, soon to be followed by water sounds: droplets, waves, and ice breaking, which are juxtaposed with terse rejoinders from the oboe. In one of the best moments, fleet runs directly respond to the flurries of rainwater in the electronics. Drop is an example of an organic use of sampling, and Bruckmann’s response to the recorded sounds is well-considered and abundantly chops-laden. 

 

Christopher Burns prefers to work closely with the interpreters’ of his music, creating a personal, collaborative experience as part of a composition’s gestation. The Mutiny of Rivers is written for EKG, Bruckmann’s duo with electronics musician Ernst Karel. Karel usually employs analog electronics, while Burns works in the digital domain. The composer combines both of these, and Bruckmann plays English horn, playing both composed and improvisatory passages. This agglomeration of elements proves to be the best of all worlds, with Karel’s analog instruments, typifying EKG’s “slowly unfolding textures and timbral nuances,” and Burns’s digital “spiky and multi-layered aesthetic,” combine in an intricate sound palette of microtones, timbral variety, and glissandos. Bruckmann, in turn, uses an instrument with additional low notes, yet plays in the altissimo register with aplomb. 

 

Burns also intends The Mutiny of Rivers to contain puzzles and even traps. One is that he gives Karel six tracks of sampled audio to use, some of which may be chopped or suppressed in performance. With versatile approaches and abundant aleatory, one can readily hear this as a playfully earnest way to provide a measure of trapeze walk to the piece. Burns cites Luigi Nono’s La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura as a totem work and although The Mutiny of Rivers contains its own panoply of sounds, the shared intent is manifest. 

 

Bruckmann’s of rivers is a formidable and satisfying recording, one of my favorites thus far in 2024. 

 

-Christian Carey


by Christian Carey
BAM, Bang on a Can, Brooklyn, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Events, Experimental Music, Minimalism, New York, Opera, Percussion

A Short Piece about Long Play 2024

Long Play …. Not long enough!

This year’s Long Play schedule is particularly dizzying. The annual festival presented by Bang on a Can in Brooklyn, now in its third year, seems to have crammed more events than ever into its three day festival, running May 3, 4 and 5. For instance, on Saturday, May 4 at 2 pm, you’ll have to choose between a new opera by the Pulitzer Prize finalist Alex Weiser with libretto by Ben Kaplan, called The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language (at American Opera Projects) AND Ensemble Klang imported from the Netherlands playing works by the Dutch composer Peter Adriaansz (who has set texts from “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”) at BRIC Ballroom AND vocal sextet Ekmeles performing music by George Lewis, Hannah Kendall, and Georg Friedrich Haas (actually at 2:30, but I imagine you’d have to get to The Space at Irondale early for a seat). A choice as difficult as any I’ve had to make at Jazzfest in New Orleans (which incidently is also happening this weekend, albeit 1000+ miles from Brooklyn).

Fans of Balinese gamelan music are in luck. A rare confluence of events provides the opportunity to hear two different ensembles, both free, both in Brooklyn, on Saturday. At 3:30 at the BRIC Stoop, you can enjoy the Queens College Gamelan Yowana Sari, performing with the percussion ensemble Talujon, along with the composer / performer Dewa Ketut Alit. Alit has come halfway around the world from Indonesia to Brooklyn for the premiere of his new work commissioned by Long Play. And at 5 pm the ensemble Dharma Swara performs at the Brooklyn Museum. Note: The Dharma Swara performance is not part of Long Play – it is a Carnegie Hall Citywide presentation.

Once your head has gone to Indonesia, you may want to continue on an around-the-world trip at Long Play. On Sunday at 2 at the Bam Café, hear DoYeon Kim playing gayageum (a traditional Korean plucked zither with 12 strings) along with her quartet featuring some New York jazz and classical luminaries.

Stick around at Bam Café after Kim’s set for another musician with sounds of a far-flung continent: At 3 pm the master kora player Yacouba Sissoko from Mali is joined by percussionist Moussa Diabaté. Diabaté is an internationally acclaimed dancer, choreographer, drummer and balafon player and together the two bring the sounds and culture of West Africa to us.

Come to think of it, when was the last time you heard music by Philip Glass played on accordion? Might as well settle in at Bam Café for the 4 pm show on Sunday, then, to hear a rare performance of the Polish virtuoso Iwo Jedynecki. Jedynecki has created some inventive arrangements of Glass’ piano etudes for button accordion.

The pinnacle of Long Play comes Sunday evening at 8 at the BAM Opera House, when the Bang on a Can All-Stars along with a bunch of special guests perform a seminal work by Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians.

by Gail Wein
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Microtonalism

Peter Thoegersen – Polytempic Polymicrotonal Music in Four Pieces

Polytempic Polymicrotonal Music in Four Pieces, by Peter Thoegersen, is a new digital release from the Fragments of Blue recording label. Since obtaining his Doctorate in Composition from the University of Illinois, Urbana, Thoegersen has devoted much of his composing career to the exploration of the musical possibilities at the intersection of rhythmic structures in multiple meters combined with scales built from microtonal pitches. This latest album builds on earlier works by simultaneously combining different meters and tempi with various microtonal temperaments. These pieces originally date from 2003 to the present, but all have been updated to incorporate expanded combinations of polyrhythms, microtonal scales and synthesized MIDI instrumentation.

The idea of combining such unconventional musical materials together would seem to be a formula for sonic chaos, but the results under Thoegersen’s artistic touch achieve a coherent and consistent elegance. This album was created by notating parts for strings, woodwinds, brass, piano and percussion as sheet music and then orchestrating with MIDI instruments. Although Thoegersen has written microtonal and polytempic pieces for performance, the music on this album is generally highly complex and often delivered at a torrid pace, so that realization is only possible through electronic means. The four pieces heard on this album represent a natural extension of Thoegersen’s technique that pushes to new limits what might seem otherwise impossible for the listener’s brain to perceive.

Two Worlds: quartertone quintets in conversation, track 1, opens the album and is representative of the wide technical scope and high ambition that drives Thoegersen’s music. According to the liner notes, this is a “…large ensemble piece with double mixed quintets and drumset that all splits into 11 separate tempi/meters during the climax and to also add full quartertone features…” This begins briskly with crisp drumming and a shower of microtonal notes in different timbres. A slightly less active section follows, with a slower melody and languid accompaniment in the lower registers. Woodwind and electronic sounds are also heard along with marimba in a busy texture.

As the piece proceeds, there is a broad variety of sound for the listener to absorb, often in a great wash of brilliant flashes and vivid colors. The microtonal pitches seem to work together nicely in a way that is always active but not overwhelming or excessively alien. The percussion sounds are especially effective and lend some order to the often agitated surface textures. A smoothly devolving finish brings the piece to a close. In Two Worlds, Thoegersen extends his expressive vision of polytempic and microtonal music to new levels of fullness.

A Day by the Strand, track 2, is the longest and perhaps the most restrained piece in the album. Four pianos in the same tuning are employed with tempi of 96, 87, 100, and 80 bpm and this facilitates greater transparency in the harmonic formulations. Soft piano chords open with short, independent rhythmic figures in accompaniment. This is relaxed and measured; almost conventional at times. Not fast or loud, but rather straightforward and laid back. Each of the piano lines are made up of simple, solemn notes expressed in multiple rhythms and microtonal tuning.

As the piece continues, the piano lines begin to syncopate against each other to build a sense of tension. Trills and ornaments add variety to the texture, often resulting in a questioning uncertainty. Towards the finish a more improvisational feeling dominates and leads to the smooth ending. A Day by the Strand provides the space and timing for the many microtonal and rhythmic processes to unfold with greater detail in the listener’s hearing.

Track 3, Fractured Consciousness, returns to the frenetic style of the opening track. The liner notes state that this piece consists of “Large meterless tuplets in different sizes…” to create “… polytempic landscapes with four tunings: 24, 26, 30, and 31 TET…” Fractured Consciousness begins with an anxious, siren-like opening that instantly evokes a frantic and complex feel. Keyboard timbre dominates in unconventional pitches so rapid and numerous that it often sounds like a swarm of buzzing insects.

The sounds arrive in quantity and with a speed that is beyond conventional human playing. This is perceived, however, as if it is a performed piece producing an interesting juxtaposition that stretches the brain of the listener. A bit like hearing a Conlon Nancarrow player piano, only faster and with complex rhythms and microtonal pitches. As the piece proceeds, a slower melody line emerges with single notes in the bass accompanied by roiling passages in the upper registers. Fractured Consciousness is an energetic, almost crushing assault on the listener’s sense of hearing – a Jackson Pollock painting is sound.

Hypercube Version III, the final track, concludes the album with more abstract and complex forms of expression in large scale. The scoring consists of 4 strings, 4 pianos and 4 drum sets in four different tempos and 4 distinct tunings. The opening of Hypercube Version III is powerful with the drum kit rhythms giving a sense of direction within the flow of the independent lines from the many instruments. A series of inventive piano melodies ride on top of the texture providing a somewhat conventional feel and an agreeable point of reference.

Around 4:00 the piece slows and turns dramatic, with long, sustained sounds. There is a relaxed, nostalgic feel to this section at times, always abstract but introspective and accessible. A gradual diminuendo in dynamic and a thinning of the texture makes for a satisfying finish. Hypercube Version III is a shorter piece, but might be the best place to begin listening as it nicely captures the essence of the many unusual musical elements in the album.

Polytempic Polymicrotonal Music in Four Pieces extends the excitement, power and nuance of Thoegersen’s inventive combinations of the unconventional.

Polytempic Polymicrotonal Music in Four Pieces is available for digital download directly from the Fragments of Blue label on Bandcamp.


by Paul Muller
Ambient, CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music

greyfade – LP2

LP2 is a newly-released album from the greyfade recording label that consists of electronic, vocal and instrumental sounds woven into a rare and beautiful ambient tapestry. Available in vinyl LP and digital download formats, LP2 is an inspired collaboration between vocalist Theo Bleckmann and electronic musician Joseph Branciforte. More than just a series of tracks, LP2 is intended as “…a complete conceptual universe – a synthesis of sound, compositional architecture, design and text worthy of sustained engagement.” Several years in the making, LP2 is a natural extension of greyfade’s acclaimed ambient album LP1 from 2019.

Joseph Branciforte, the founder of the greyfade record label and a Grammy Award-winner, has extensive experience as a recording engineer as well as process-based composition, electronic and acoustic minimalism. Theo Bleckmann, a vocalist twice nominated for a Grammy, “…makes music that is accessibly sophisticated, unsentimentally emotional, and seriously playful…” In many ways, the structure of the pieces in the album amount to Branciforte and Bleckmann working seamlessly as a single artist. Their combined talents have resulted in LP2, an album that explores the relationship between the otherworldly and the familiar.

The first track is 1.13 and was originally recorded as part of the sessions for LP1 back in 2018, but was left off that album. This track thus forms a natural connection between the two. 1.13 opens with low sustained string tones, as if the distant roar of some large motor. Soft vocals enter, long tones without words. Occasional chimes add a solemn feeling to an otherwise restful and serene ambiance. The skillful mix of these elements create an even and pleasant texture. As the piece proceeds, the parts slowly fade away, thinning out the lovely sounds and reducing the dynamics. 1.13 glides to a placid landing, the contented essence of soothing tranquility.

Some of the pieces on this CD are short ,at just a minute or two, much like sonic samplers. 10.11.5, the second track, Opens with a soft electronic beeping, soon joined by sustained voices. There is a gentle feel to this and a slightly alien feel, although never intimidating. 10.14.4, track 4, is similar with somewhat stronger beeping and a faster tempo. Voices in harmony sing short notes in syncopated counterpoint over a lovely sustained tone. A mechanical clicking adds just a touch of urgency to this piece.

10.17.13, track 7, opens with a variety of electronic and metallic sounds along with a touch of mystery in the vocal parts. There is a stronger alien feel to this, but never menacing. The volume builds, cresting to add a bit of tension, but soon fades away. 8.11, track 5, is slightly longer at 3 minutes and begins with solitary metallic tones, heard singly or a few at a time. Sustained voices appear in the background with percussive sounds and occasional musical tones dominating. A restful feel to this even as the metallic sounds contribute an alien flavor. Overall, these pieces straddle the line between the warmly welcoming and the otherworldly.

7.21, track 6, takes this idea a bit further with a duration slightly longer than 7 minutes. Light bell chiming sounds open and are followed by flute entrance with long tones in low register. Quiet vocals, in same general register as the flute, add a distinctly human element. There is a soothing and gentle feel to this that is complimented by a steady drone and the subdued electronic sounds. The vocals occasionally soar above the texture beautifully evoking a gentle and introspective atmosphere.

11.15, track 3, is one of the longer pieces at 10:12 and has perhaps the most complex blend of sounds. Deep single bass tones in the opening repeat a three note phrase. A languid voice enters, repeating a simple melodic phrase without words Bells and other electronics now in the texture and a male voice enters in counter melody. There is some complexity to the texture but always simple and lovely. Some sustained instrumental tones enter with a halting, somewhat mechanical feel. There is a beautiful blending of the electronic, instrumental and vocal sounds so that all the elements combine well together. Towards the finish, the voices become more rhythmically active and increase their dynamics to dominate. 11.15 combines all its various elements to create a lovely sound that just keeps flowing along until quietly fading at the finish.

9.23, track 8, concludes the album. Soft voices open with a scratching, mechanical timbre followed by electronic musical tones, distant and cool, with strong sustained notes. This produces a slightly menacing, but mysterious feel. Now long sustained vocal tones, sounding almost as screams, arc over the softer texture. The declarative style of the vocals dominate and there is a sense of tension here, more so than the other pieces on this album. Bell tones appear and the mix of sounds seems to be gradually changing. A more intentional feel develops, and this final piece is no benign ambient wash. At the finish, the sounds slowly fade out in a rhythmic cycle leaving only a light static. 9.23 is perhaps the most calculating piece of the album: warm, yet distant – congenial, yet remote. The listener is invited to decide what this music is communicating about the “…boundaries between improvisation & composition, live performance & studio production, human & machine-generated sound.”

LP2 invites the listener to consider the mix of the alien and the welcoming in the sounds. Each piece contains these elements in slightly different proportions, and the listener must decide if this constitutes a threat or reassurance. Joseph Branciforte is a Grammy Award-winner for sound engineering and his skills on this album deserve special mention. The variety the sounds heard on LP2 often send out conflicting emotions in a way that outweighs their sonic presence. The mixing and mastering here are extraordinary in that there is a cohesive and balanced fabric that frames these unusual sonic textures. The clarity delivered by LP2 provides the listener with a new level of precision for the evaluation of unique sounds and unusual combinations.

LP2 is available from the greyfade record label directly.

by Paul Muller
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?, Vocals

What of Words and What of Song – Juliet Fraser on Neos (CD Review)

 

 

What of Words and What of Song

Juliet Fraser, vocalist

With Mikael Rudolfsson, trombone, Helen Bledsoe, bass flute, and Uli Fussenegger, double bass

NEOS Music 

 

Soprano Juliet Fraser is one of very few performers who could successfully present the challenging program on What of Words and What of Song (NEOS Music). It consists of works by European composers born in the 1950s and 1960s: Rebecca Saunders, Enno Poppe, Beat Furrer, and Chaya Chernowin. Fraser doesn’t just sing them, she inhabits the pieces with encompassing dramatic commitment. 

 

“O,” by Rebecca Saunders, features swooping glissandos and breath slides, alongside untexted sections that not only include vowels, but lip and throat trills, gasps, quick-rendered gibberish, overtones, and throat singing. Fraser makes these seemingly incongruous elements cohere into an expressive presentation that imparts a dramatic shape despite lacking a perceptible text. It ends with an ascending glissando that suggests a question mark. O Yes and I, also by Saunders, is a successor to O, in which its material is repurposed for a duet with bass flute, here played by Helen Bledsoe. Bledsoe is a worthy collaborator, mimicking Fraser and alternatively serving as a foil. She also has impressive control with the instrument, playing securely in a wide dynamic range with stentorian attacks that can be challenging on this large member of the flute family.

Enno Poppe’s Wespe (“Wasp”) uses undulating pitches to describe the insect’s path. Gradually, consonants are added and additional motives suggest a wasp lighting from place to place, occasionally buffeted by the wind. It is subtle in its programmatic use of vocalise, but the result is beguiling 

 

Trombonist Mikael Rudolfsson joins Fraser for Spazio Immergente I (“Immersive Space”) by Beat Furrer. Muted trombone lines swoop around swelling high notes from Fraser. The soprano then sings repetitions that mirror the gestures in the trombone. The mute comes off, and there is a more competitive stance between the performers and a role reversal, the trombone undertaking swells while Fraser performs digressive riffs. Eventually, the two are joined in performing long glissandos, Fraser arriving at some of her highest notes as Rudolfsson then undertakes low pedal tones. A coda replete with staccato culminates with a flurry of fortissimo attacks in altissimo gestures from Fraser and glissandos and blats in the bass from Rudolfsson. 

 

Adiantum Capillus-Veneris I (“Maidenhair fern”) is by Chaya Czernowin. Maidenhair ferns are distinctive in their ability to shed rainwater without getting wet. The ferns grow in many places in the world, including Israel, where Czernowin is from and first saw them. The piece is marked,”for voice and air.” The use of exaggerated inhalations and exhalations serves as an extra “voice.” There is a watery ascent of breath at the beginning that is then replaced with sung ascending glissandos, each with pauses for breath. The rate of change gradually speeds up, followed by whooshes and ha’s. Then blowing outward between silences. The watery ascent continues, held at the end each time in emphatic fry. A long breath serves as a transition to the voice’s return to singing ascending glissandos; the two are then juxtaposed. Descending minor thirds add a final motive to the mix. The opening ascent and fry return, and the piece closes in whorls of air. Czernowin has likened Adiantum Capillus-Veneris I to a line drawing or small painting; this is an excellent analogy for the deployment of its detailed material. 

 

The last piece on the recording is Lótofagos I (lotus-eaters) for soprano and double bass by Beat Furrer. Fraser’s collaborator here is Uli Fusseneger, who is a stellar player. Lotus-eaters are people from an episode in Homer’s Odyssey who ate only lotuses, which caused them to forget. Today, the term connotes an indolent pleasure-seeker. The texts, for here words are recognizably employed, are by José Ángel Valente. It is a strange story, rendered with a gradual buildup from cooing to fortissimo keening, and softly rendered tight dissonances and double-stops to full chords on the double-bass. Furrer’s take appears to embody the fear of loss of recognition rather than a sense of peaceful rest. Little shared motives seem to dissolve over the course of the piece; another framing of forgetting, here as oblivion. As the piece goes on, language is lost in places to lip trills and isolated vowels, with the poem seeming to dissolve too. 

 

The four composers here are imaginative in their conceptions of vocalism beyond language. Fraser embodies each of their pieces compellingly, with impressive attention to details of vocal, musical, and expressive elements. What of Words and What of Song is one of my favorite releases I have encountered in 2023.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Experimental Music, File Under?

Jessica Pavone – Clamor (CD Review)

Jessica Pavone

Clamor

Out of Your Head Records

 

Violist Jessica Pavone has made a detailed study of microtones, excelling as well at techniques such as harmonics, bow pressure, and multi-stops. Clamor, her latest recording for Out of Your Head Records, combines all of these in four extended solo works.

 

As the title of the recording suggests, there is a fair amount of dissonance and noise. Not so on the first track, “Neolttwigi,” in which sumptuous multi-stops, modal melodies, and the exploration of multiple overtone series combine in one of Pavone’s most memorable compositions to date.

 

“Nu Shu,” split into Parts 1 and 2, is an exuberant celebration of noise, with the aforementioned pitched components saturated with dissonance and unpitched string sounds, bow pressure chief among them. Pressed harmonics are redolent with upper partials. Pavone frequently plays them in the piece. When fleet melodies take over, they too are distorted, at times sounding more like electric guitar than viola. Tapping and scratching various places on the viola yields percussive effects. A held bass note with ascending glissandos is a reverberant refrain. While much of this suite explores noise, not all of it is loud. One of the best passages is a soft presentation of scratchiness alongside descending glissandos and repeated notes. Its finale, however, is filled with exuberant yawping fortissimos.

 

The final track is “Bloom,” on which Pavone explores the language of folk music in a doleful, Celtic-sounding, opening tune. Ornamented with filigree and supported by a drone in the bass, it once again returns Pavone’s music to a more pitch-based palette. A squall of semitones interrupts the reverie, but the drone and tune soon return. Multi-stops and a placid ostinato then undergird high harmonics. Repeated notes animate the tune, but this is contravened by the persistent stillness of the rest of the texture. Swelling modal harmonies, once again capped off by dissonant verticals, provide a fascinating interlude that soon is interrupted by the opening drone and slower oscillations. As “Bloom” moves toward its conclusion, dissonances are juxtaposed against a different drone. At the height of the intensity, modal chords commingle with the more fraught elements, imparting a diverse sense of harmonic movement. “Bloom” ends enigmatically, on an accented, dissonant, high chord.

 

Pavone has distinguished herself as a talented soloist (and collaborator) and a dedicated investigator of extended materials. Clamor is her best to date, with daring contrasts and  not a note – or scratch – out of place. It is one of my favorite recordings of 2023.

  • Christian Carey

 

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

Happy Birthday Jürg Frey

Sequenza 21 is pleased to wish a Happy Seventieth Birthday to Jürg Frey. The Swiss composer has been a member of the wandelweiser collective since the 1990s, and his work exemplifies its aesthetic. For fifty years, Frey was also a well-regarded clarinetist.

 

We will celebrate with coverage of two of Frey’s recent recordings.

 

Borderland Melodies

Apartment House

Another Timbre

 

Apartment House has become something of an ensemble-in-residence for the Another Timbre label. The group revels in experimentation, taking special interest in living British composers, the New York School, and wandelweiser. Borderland Melodies includes three pieces featuring both clarinet and bass clarinet. Like much of his music, the compositions here explore “landscape,” not as a program, but as a musical vantage point. Thus, moment-to-moment events are organized in terms of long stretches in which rhythm, pacing, and harmony give a different sense of space. While discussing such intricate layers of sound, one cannot help but draw a parallel to the precision and thoughtfulness of Top casino’s zonder Cruks, platforms designed to provide a tailored gaming experience that adheres to the specific preferences of players while offering a sense of freedom and accessibility. The sound of the two clarinets together, played by Heather Roche and Raymond Brien, is lovely, perhaps serving as an homage to Frey’s own clarinet playing. In the title piece, they are accompanied by solitary piano notes and string harmonics. The idea of melody, while palpable throughout, is executed through compound melodies and attenuated Webernian utterances.

L’état de Simplicité is cast in four movements. Thrumming bass notes are offset by sustained pitches in movement one, Á la limiter du sens. Toucher l’air refers to the technique of vibrating the air moving through an instrument. The third movement features beguiling rearticulated verticals. The final movement, Les Zones neutres, juxtaposes pizzicatos with sustained winds, to which sometimes are added violin harmonics that make chords blossom. Moment, ground, fragility is a half hour long, shorter than some others of Frey’s pieces, but long enough to get a sense for how he deals with a big compositional canvas. There is a noticeable economy of means, with repeated pitches and intervals moving around one another like an orbital process. Percussion is part of the ensemble here, providing a slow tactus that, rather than feeling like a downbeat accent, is accompanied by isorhythmic structuring in the other instruments. Those who wish to start with a piece by Frey might consider Moment, ground, fragility as a point of entry.

 

Lieus d’ombres

3-CD box

Reinier van Houdt, piano

Elsewhere

 

“If I were a pianist, I would play my music like Reinier would play it.” — Jürg Frey

 

Frey has written a great deal of piano music. It has been performed by Dante Boon, Philip Thomas, and the pianist here, Reiner van Houdt. Lieus d’ombres was written over a long period of time, from 1984 to 2016. Yet the seven compositions are of a piece: Pianissimo, closely voiced verticals and single pitches that float at a slow and steady tempo. These are interspersed by section-punctuating silences. Changes in pacing then seem all the more significant. The language is primarily triadic, with shifts between pitch centers that retain the overall chordal spacings. It is a blissful listen.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Events, Experimental Music, Los Angeles

Urban Birds ’23 in Pasadena

Arlington Garden in Pasadena was the venue on Sunday, May 7, 2023 for Urban Birds ‘23, an afternoon of sunshine, synthesized sound experiences and live outdoor performances presented by Synchromy. A number of Los Angeles-based composers and performers were on hand and the audience was encouraged to simply wander through the garden to take in the sound installations and stop by the scheduled performances. The weather was perfect and the event program also listed “bird demonstrations by Wild Wings, crafting stations by local artist groups, and hands-on activities for all ages.”

Entering through the main gate to Arlington Garden and following the gravel footpath soon brings you to a clearing with chairs, benches, umbrellas and tables. This was the venue for Hornbill, a continuous sound installation featuring sustained ambient tones and a few high-pitched electronic beeps and boops. This was soft and calming, and conjured a convincing electronic metaphor for wild birds chirping in a garden. Further down the footpath was Feast + Famine, a demonstration of some live worms (zophobas atratus) capable of eating and digesting plastic. If you were brave enough to have a look inside, a few very small creatures could be seen crawling over some styrofoam flakes, apparently enjoying a hearty meal. A speaker emitted a sort of low gnawing and crunching sound that was actually the amplified chewing of the worms.

Nearby was an elegant performance by Sharon Chohi Kim who acted out the part of a bird in the wild. Her movements were slow and deliberate with eyes darting about as if on the hunt or wary of predators. Ms. Kim’s dress was long and loosely hung, suggesting folded wings at her side. Although brightly colored, she blended nicely into the garden underbrush as she stalked about. Kim issued bird-like calls that added to the convincing illusion. All of this was improvised in the moment and very effective. Ms. Kim deployed a graceful control of her movements and was truly channeling her inner bird.

Further on there was a demonstration of live owls by Wild Wings. It was hard to believe these birds were not mechanical, especially when they turned their heads almost full circle. The barn owl, in particular, seemed particularly dignified. Nearby was another sound installation, Twa Corbies, and this consisted of speakers mounted inside two wooden keepsake boxes that frequently emitted loud bird calls and squawks.

In a clearing at one end of the garden was Stellate Hexany Earth Chimes and this consisted of two tubular chime stands standing about 40 feet apart with two players at each. The chimes were fashioned from steel tubes and trimmed individually to pitches conforming to a Just Intonation tuning scheme. There was a written score for each of the four parts and the playing was synchronized by timer. Four for Twenty, composed by Daniel Corral, was the piece performed on these chimes. This began with solitary tones ringing out, each in turn, releasing sounds that seemed to hang effortlessly in the air. The tuning of the chimes and the careful striking with mallets produced a series of gentle and calming sounds. As the piece progressed, a call and answer pattern developed between the two chime sets that was very effective. The rate of striking the chimes increased gradually towards the finish and the garden air was filled with what might have been the ringing of distant church bells. After the piece concluded, Daniel Corral was available to discuss his techniques of chime construction and tuning as well as the interpretation of the notated score.

In another part of the garden, the fully electronic Nightjar:, by Kelly Heaton, was performed by Christina Lord. A beautifully crafted circuit board in the shape of a bird was the centerpiece of Nightjar:. This was populated with a number of electronic oscillators that randomly emitted bird calls from various species. These sounds were sampled and mixed in a PC using synthesizer software so that the performer could improvise the texture around the chirps, squeaks and squawks coming from the bird. The result was a surprising and convincing electronic sound picture that nicely captured the organic feeling of live birds calling in the wild. This was no doubt partly due to the power of suggestion – the electronic circuit board/bird sculpture was so appealing to the eye that its sounds were uncritically perceived by the brain as coming from a living bird. Even so, Nightjar: is an impressive combination of electronic craft in the service of musical art.



Urban Birds ’23 is a pleasant outdoor musical experience that will be all the more appreciated after the long and wet Southern California winter. Urban Birds ’23 moves to the Audubon Center at Debs Park, Los Angeles, for a repeat showing on Saturday, May 13

Audubon Center at Debs Park
4700 Griffin Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90031

Synchromy is:

Ashton Phillips, Carolyn Chen, Daniel Corral, Kelly Heaton, Cassia Streb, Tim Feeney, and Thadeus Frazier-Reed.

by Paul Muller
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?

Ming Tsao – Triode Variations (CD Review)

Ming Tsao

Triode Variations

Ensemble Musikfabrik, conducted by Emilio Pomárico

Neue Vocalisten Stuttgart

Ensemble KNM Berlin, Stefan Schreiber, conductor

Kairos Music

 

Triode Variations is composer Ming Tsao’s third recording for Kairos, with another portrait CD on the way in 2024. It is a showcase of a relatively small timeframe, with pieces on it composed from 2016-2020. In his formative years Tsao trained widely, studying violin and viola with Ron Erikson, Guqin (Chinese zither) with Wu Zhao-ji, composition with Chaya Czernowin and Brian Ferneyhough, and electronic music with Mario Davidovsky. He ended up at University of California San Diego, where he received the Ph.D. in Music Composition. Subsequent to this, his music has been commissioned by prominent ensembles and featured at a number of festivals. Much of Ming Tsao’s work has premiered in Europe, and three German ensembles record it here. 

 

The composer uses highly intricate procedures, which are copiously described in the release’s liner notes. It involves using preexisting music, reversing and then modifying it to create something nearly unrecognizable to the original. Ming Tsao likens it to multiple palimpsests. Triode Variations (2019-2020) takes as its starting point Arnold Schoenberg’s Variations for Orchestra. Over the course of three movements, two interludes, and a postlude, Ming Tsao explores a complex web of angular lines. The Schoenberg layer occasionally is asserted, but only for brief fleeting moments. Triode Variations is played with fine detail and bold assurance under Emilio Pomárico’s direction of Ensemble Musikfabrik. 

 

The composer is fascinated with canonic procedures from the Medieval and Renaissance era, which is displayed in Das Wassergewordene Kanonbuch (2016-2017), in which intricate counterpoint is brought to play in each of the twenty puzzle canons. Once again, a reversal procedure is employed to further complicate the proceedings. The canons reference texts of Paul Celan, a twentieth century poet whose own cryptic procedures are an apt inclusion. Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart are required to perform extended techniques alongside complex linear interactions. Once again, the use of palimpsests successively glimpsed in the music is a fascinating technique that creates kaleidoscopic effects. 

 

Refuse Collection (2017), performed by the Ensemble KNM Berlin, conducted by Stefan Schreiber, is given an incisive, rhythmically taut performance. It is another reverse transcription of Schoenberg, this time his Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene, Schoenberg’s only film music. The music is refracted through a metric grid based on the poem Refuse Collection (2004) by J.H. Prynne. 

 

For those interested in the construction of music by Ming Tsao, consult the detailed liner notes essay on his compositional language. For those who prefer to listen without preconceptions, Ming Tsao’s music speaks for itself. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

 



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Los Angeles

Isaac Schankler – Because/Patterns

Aerocade Music’s Because/Patterns is an album of experimental music by composer Isaac Schankler. Three new works are featured and performed by top Los Angeles-area musicians. Each piece is the product of the relationship that develops between the acoustic instruments and accompanying electronic constructions. Schankler is perhaps best known as the artistic director of People Inside Electronics, an organization dedicated to ambitious and innovative uses of electronics in new concert music. This album marks the high level of his efforts in this area.

The first piece is Because Patterns/Deep State, with Aron Kallay on piano, Vicki Ray on prepared piano and Scott Worthington playing bass. This begins with an electronic track full of sharp rattling rhythmic sounds that alternate on both channels. Deep, booming bass sounds from Worthington occur at regular intervals, followed by a whirring sound that increases in loudness and finally dominates. Some quietly repeating piano notes slowly push their way into the texture, gaining quickly in volume and creating a nice rhythmic groove in the process. The whirring returns, accompanied by drumming and a variety of industrial sounds – humming, buzzing, clicking and rumbling – these are imposing, although not quite menacing. A siren is heard in the foreground, sustained and urgent, building a sense of anxiety.

Synthesized string sounds appear like the sunrise on a cool morning invoking a more hopeful and optimistic feeling. As the whirring and drumming recede, a light rain of appealing piano notes is heard and soon dominates to bring a welcome sense of cheer. The ominous electronic sounds, however, return to continue the pattern of alternating layers that rise and recede as the piece moves forward. The piano playing by Kallay and Ray is warm and lyrical – immediately recognizable as inspired by human creativity. The deep electronics are never menacing, but always stand apart from the music.

As the dark mechanical sounds recur, they evoke the regimented constraints of a modern existence. When the lighter piano notes appear with their optimistic tones and agreeable rhythms, we are reminded of those times when our humanity is allowed to prevail. These two states struggle for control, but neither seems able to completely displace the other. The persistence of optimism is the message here; life is never so grim that all possibility of hope is extinguished. Because Patterns/Deep State is an artful exploration of the contending forces present in our culture, and offers a powerful assurance of human resilience.

The second work, Mobile I, features violinist Sakura Tsai along with electronic accompaniment enhanced by spectral analysis. This opens with sustained notes in the violin followed by a pause and then some light skittering with pizzicato that builds tension. The sustained tones return, but are now accompanied by a pure electronic tone that shines like a cool beacon through the increasingly complex flow of phrases issuing from the violin. The electronic tones vary in pitch but never overwhelm, acting like a calm backdrop to the now frenzied passages expertly played by Sakura Tsai. The tension ratchets higher as rough, scratchy sounds evoke a convincing sense of suffering and agony. The electronics now become more animated and percussive, adding to the level of anxiety. The violin finally breaks out in a series of fast, nicely articulated phrases, as if sprinting towards freedom before fading at the finish. Mobile I artfully contrasts the vividly expressive sounds of the violin with more reserved tones from the electronics, a combination that, surprisingly. works to magnify the emotional response of the listener.

The final track is Future Feelings and features pianist Nadia Shpachenko. This opens with a lightly metallic wash in the electronics and swirls of strong piano notes. As the piece moves forward, the piano dominates, unreeling clouds of lovely phrases played with that characteristically sensitive Shpachenko touch. Although for the most part quietly atmospheric, some drama is occasionally added when the piano dips into the lower registers in a series of rapid, descending scales. Soft beeping tones – clearly electronic – enter from underneath, yet these seem perfectly at home embedded within the lush melodies and warm textures of the piano line. The extravagantly beautiful playing of Ms. Shpachenko almost steals the show, but the subdued electronic presence is memorable precisely for how much it contributes to the warm sensibility of this piece. Future Feelings is exquisitely expressive music, with just the right balance of masterful playing and superbly complimentary electronics.

Because/Patterns is remarkable listening and a new benchmark of just how highly evolved the combination of acoustic instruments and electronics has become in the service of musical expression.

Because/Patterns is available now via digital download from Bandcamp, Amazon, Spotify, and other retailers. A 12” vinyl record with a unique color or pattern combination and can also be ordered via Bandcamp.






by Paul Muller