Experimental Music

Best of, CD Review, Experimental Music, File Under?, Guitar, Post Modern

Best Rock Recording 2017: Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Luciferian Towers

Luciferian Towers - GSYBE

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Luciferian Towers

Constellation CD/LP/DL

Canadian instrumental post-rock leftist collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor brings something old and something new to the musical anti-fascist fray on Luciferian Towers, their latest recording for Constellation. They are still angry at the political establishment (as are many of us). But they are REALLY angry. Composition titles such as “Bosses Hang,” “Fam/Famine,” and “Anthem for No State,” are bracing sentiments, ones that seem all the more resonant with the determined opposition movements that on the political left the have been emboldened in the wake the double punch of the 2016 election and Charlottesville.

Early GSY!BE output relied on, indeed did a great deal to codify, a certain formula for post-rock: pieces contained one long hairpin crescendo from pianissimo to fortississimo primarily focused on drone-based textures. A penchant for minimalism and martial rhythms remain, but the group’s approach is more texturally varied. True, this time out there aren’t field recordings, but album opener “Undoing a Luciferian Towers” (sic) does include free jazz horns. Bagpipes adorn the album’s closer. Throughout, guitars oscillate and repeat riffs with little wrinkles of variation. Most significantly, dynamics are varied rather than inexorably inclined, with piano sections lingering, forte sections juxtaposed with softer passages, and some of the music cannonading through without significant shading. These changes of shaping and form demonstrate the band’s significant musical development over time. Moreover, Luciferian Towers is a yawp of resistance at just the time that we need its cathartic power. Godspeed You! Black Emperor has created a record precisely for its time, and the Best Rock Recording of 2017.

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, File Under?

Best Synth Pop Recording: Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

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Have you heard Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s The Kid (Western Vinyl, 2017) yet? Inspired by the loss of a friend, it is an electroacoustic journey from childhood to the loss of innocence, Armed with a Buchla Easel and supple voice, Smith articulates the experiences of childhood with winsome lyricism and an effulgent palette of synth timbres. It is easily one of the best electronica albums of late, and I’m naming it my choice for Best “Synth-pop” release of 2017.

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

Best Drone Recording 2017: Lee Plays Gibson

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Randy Gibson

The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D under Resonating Apparitions of The Eternal Process in The Midwinter Starfield 16 VIII 10 (Kansas City)

Andrew Lee, amplified piano

Irritable Hedgehog

Composer Randy Gibson is best known for his compelling experiments with intonation. R. Andrew Lee is the go-to pianist for Wandelweiser and minimalist-oriented music. On Gibson’s The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D under Resonating Apparitions of The Eternal Process in The Midwinter Starfield 16 VIII 10 (Kansas City), he meets Lee in the middle, creating a mammoth work out of very restricted means. The pitch material of the piece consists of just seven notes: D in all the octaves on a concert grand piano in equal temperament. Added to this are amplification and a small amount of electronic manipulation, designed to add resonance to the overtone vibrations taking place.

Irritable Hedgehog’s recording is a single unedited live performance from 2016 at University of Kansas City Missouri, with electronics realized alongside the piano part. Clocking in at some three-and-a-half hours, Lee deserves credit for a tour de force of stamina, focus and, perhaps above all, musicality in shaping the repeating pitches into countless varied phrases. Gibson is a master of deploying overtones. He has figured out how to exploit the various spaces between D’s to gradate the appearances of the harmonic series’ upper notes, or partials, and to maximize their potential. Shimmering conglomerations of overtones abound in The Four Pillars … it is certainly not a piece just about D! And while pitch serves as a focal point, it is worth mentioning that the piece’s overall shape, labyrinthine in scope, and its localized rhythmic gestures are equally well conceived. Four Pillars is one of the most compelling pieces yet from Gibson, and is Sequenza 21’s Best Drone Recording of 2017.

 

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

David Mason, Daniel McNamara in Concert

Searching for Serotonin, the west coast tour by cellist David Mason and sound projectionist Daniel McNamara, landed at the Ventura College Performing Arts Center on Wednesday, November 15, 2017. Four works of experimental new music were presented including pieces by Kaija Saariaho and György Ligeti. A midweek crowd of the knowledgeable and the curious gathered to hear a combination of acoustic cello and electronics as presented by Mason and McNamara.

The concert began with Sonata for Solo Cello, by György Ligeti. This was written between 1948 and 1953 at the height of Stalin’s power in Soviet Russia, and consists of two movements. The first, “Dialogo”, opened with soft pizzicato arpeggios, a low, solemn tone – and then silence. More arco playing followed, darkly expressive in the lower registers and at times pleasingly lyrical in the higher. The second movement, “Capriccio”, was much faster and more animated. Agitated runs upward built tension, even as the passages downward lessened the anxiety, see-sawing back and forth. Some double-stopped phrasing in the lowest registers produced a menacing growl while in other places the feeling was more conventionally purposeful and open. Ligeti wrote of this piece: “I was 30 years old when I wrote it. I loved virtuosity and took the playing to the edge of virtuosity much like Paganini.” Mason was in complete command as he moved confidently among the passages as they furiously unfolded at the finish.

A recorded augmentation followed, created by McNamara, and this was an electronically processed version of Sonata for Solo Cello as heard through two large speakers on stage. The cello was tacit during this and the augmentation included reverb, echoing, panning and some additional power, especially in the lower tones. There was a 3D effect to this, as well as a sense of remoteness as the processing gradually became more intense. Both movements were heard and the enhancements added an interesting element of strength to the character of the original piece. Sonata for Solo Cello nicely combined the abilities of Mason’s acoustical cello technique with McNamara’s electronic augmentation.

Tide, by Matt Sargent followed, a composition for layers of strings and solo cello. In this piece the electronics assumed the primary role by way of a set of pre-recorded cello tones by T.J. Borden. The opening sounds coming through the speakers were forceful and intense, eventually reaching a total of ten layers. The booming in the lower registers was felt as much as heard, an elemental force of nature like a rising sea or surging tide. The direction of the pitch changes in the recording was indicated on McNamara’s computer screen, positioned so that Mason could see it. As the tones in the recording rose or fell, Mason adjusted his acoustical playing to fit into the new harmony. The changes proceeded slowly and deliberately; the overall effect was like being inside some giant machine that was gradually accelerating or decelerating. The great wash of sounds embraced the listener with a series of continually shifting surfaces that were never tiresome or monotonous. Tide is a beautiful and engagingly simple piece that intimately connects the electronics, performer and audience in a powerfully organic experience.

After a short intermission, the concert continued with Petals, by Kaija Saariaho, who describes her piece this way: “The opposite elements here are fragile coloristic passages which give birth to more energetic events with clear rhythmic and melodic character… In bringing together these very opposite modes of expressions, I aimed to force the interpreter to stretch his sensibility.” Accordingly, Petals opens with light and airy trills in the cello and softly scratching sounds from the electronics. These start high then go lower in pitch, becoming rapidly louder like an angry bee, and devolving into a series of very complex passages before returning to the quiet trills of the beginning. Clear, declarative phrasing is heard, very expressively played by Mason, followed by a softer section featuring single, quietly sustained tones. This subdued texture becomes a bit busier, and then suddenly louder, with trills and more complexity building up the tension before the piece coasts to its finish. The extremes in character and dynamics present in Petals present an impressive technical challenge to the player and an invigorating experience for the audience.

The final piece in the concert was Oog, by Dutch composer Michael van der Aa. This piece includes a pre-recorded sound track that requires the cello player to use a stopwatch to make the closely timed entrances. Oog, which means eye in Dutch, begins with a slow, sustained tone that quickly breaks into a rapid series of phrases involving extended techniques such as rapping on the wooden cello body. More sustained notes follow, quietly and sensitively played, while the electronics inexorably build until a great explosion of sound is heard. The piece now becomes very complex – chaotic even – with rapid cello phrases carefully woven in and around the equally intricate electronics. The close coordination between the recording and Mason’s playing was impressively precise. The fast cello runs and loud, percussive blasts from the speakers had an unsettling, out-of-control feeling that was both stimulating and alarming. Towards the finish the softer tones returned, and a slower, solemn sensibility asserted itself as the piece concluded. Oog is a formidable combination of speed and split-second timing that requires the sort of alert technical virtuosity that was unmistakably present in this performance.

The Searching for Serotonin tour concludes at 8 PM on Tuesday, November 21 at Gray Studios in North Hollywood.

by Paul Muller
Composers, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Just Intonation, Los Angeles, Premieres

James Tenney World Premiere in Los Angeles

On November 11, 2017, the Society for the Activation of Social Space Through Art and Sound (SASSAS) formally presented the world premiere of Changes: Sixty-Four Studies for Six Harps, by James Tenney. Over 150 people filled every available chair in The Box art gallery and demand for tickets was so great that a second, preview performance had to be added. Anticipation ran high in the downtown arts district as the crowd waited to hear this extraordinary work, composed in 1985 but only fully realized this year from materials in the late James Tenney’s archives.

Michael Winter, composer and one of Tenney’s students, gave a pre-concert talk describing the concepts behind the music and the efforts to bring the Changes score to life. Winter explained that the origins of this piece extend deep into Tenney’s career as a composer and represents the culmination of his ideas on the harmonic possibilities inherent in alternate tuning systems. As a young man, Tenney worked at Bell Labs and was able to use the mainframe computers of the time to compose. Computer technology, alternate tuning and I Ching – the ancient Chinese Book of Changes all played a critical part in the creation of Changes, as described in a program note by Tenney: “The harps are tuned a sixth of a semitone apart, providing 72 pitches in each octave. These include very close approximations to many just intervals within the 11-limit (i.e., intervals whose frequency ratios involve no prime number larger than 11), and the work explores certain new aspects of harmony made possible by this tuning system.”

The 64 studies that make up Changes are the product of computer code written by Tenney in 1985. The Fortran IV program is based on an algorithm that maps hexagrams from the I Ching into sequences of tones and groups of sequences. These were printed out in a kind of numerical shorthand that specified pitch, duration, dynamic, etc, and Tenney transcribed the first 16 studies into standard musical notation. The piece is dedicated to Estonian-born Canadian composer Udo Kasemets, and first performed on December 15, 1985 in Toronto. Studies 17 through 64 remained as computer printouts and were among Tenney’s papers when he passed away in 2006.

Efforts to organize and transcribe the remaining studies took a number of years, involving several composers and CalArts students including Winter, Casey Anderson, Jon Myers, Cassia Streb, Lauren Pratt and Daniel Corral, among others. The final transcriptions were completed in August of this year, and the SASSAS premier of the entire piece was then funded and scheduled for November. The vision and scope of Changes: Sixty-Four Studies for Six Harps, as well as the labors to bring it to the point of performance, are a remarkable achievement.

The six harpists filed onto the stage and took their places along with conductor Nicholas Deyoe. Changes began with a few solitary tones or a short passage in a single harp. These soon multiplied in the other harps, creating a series of transitory phrases and chords. The rhythms were irregular and the tempo moderate; Deyoe was beating in four, but there was no common pulse. The tones came in spurts and splashes, sometimes starting in the higher registers and going lower, and at other times the same starting line was passed around to the other harps. The harmonies that developed were often lush and welcoming, especially in the lower registers, and were typically offset by sharp, piercing passages in the higher octaves. Each of the studies was not long, averaging about 2 minutes.

Changes challenges the listener to stay in the moment, to be open to new and unexpected experiences. Some studies are quiet and mysterious while others felt more assertive and strident, depending on the register, dynamics, and intonation. Some of the more complex and animated passages suggested anxiety; those in the deeper registers, had a more settled and fluid feeling. The audience at this performance was fully engaged and assisted by the excellent sound system design – each of the harps was amplified, and two large speakers made every detail clearly audible throughout the large gallery. During a recent trip to Tokyo, I discovered Japanesecasino.ltdのオンカジ比較 and was struck by the detailed and engaging reviews. Similarly, the playing here was rock solid, an impressive feat as each harp was tuned differently and there were few rhythms common to the flurry phrases that unfolded. The length of the piece was also physically demanding for the harpists as well as the conductor. Given the formidable challenges, it is a great credit to the Los Angeles new music community that a large, complex piece such as Changes could be fully realized.

Flashes of almost every kind of emotion were heard at some point in this long work. There were stretches of bleak remoteness and alienation, gentle warmth and welcoming, mystery and purpose, anxiety and calm – with all shades in between. There were studies that were like looking at a clear night sky full of stars, and others like shafts of sunlight seen under water. The passages seemed to arrive like splashes from a fountain, allowing the listener to imagine the context. Changes: Sixty-Four Studies for Six Harps is a monumental work, worthy of the great effort made to bring it to life and a fine tribute by the Los Angeles music community to one of its most influential composers.

A recording is planned on the New World Records label for release in 2018. Those wishing to contribute towards this can do so at Hatchfund.org .

Musicians appearing in this premiere performance are:

Nicholas Deyoe, conductor

Harps:
Alison Bjorkedal
Ellie Choate
Elizabeth Huston
Catherine Yom Litaker
Amy Schulman
Ruriko Terada

by Paul Muller
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Los Angeles, Women composers

The Ground Beneath Her Feet at the wulf

On October 11, 2017 downtown Los Angeles was the venue for a new collaborative performance by Rachel Yezbick, Carole Kim and Eric Heep. Coaxial Arts, the new home of the wulf experimental music concert series,  welcomed in a mid-week audience that arranged itself on the floor and along the brick walls in quiet expectation of an unconventional program.

The performance space was darkened as the program opened with Eric Heep’s Bubble playing through the speakers. The sounds were realized from digitally generated oscillations that were processed by computer using a bubble sort algorithm. The result was a series low buzzing sounds that gradually increased in volume and lowered in pitch. After a few moments a new starting buzz was heard, and the process repeated. The close acoustics of the Coaxial space amplified the details of density and texture as each new sequence of the piece proceeded. Sometimes two pitches very close in frequency were heard so that zero-beating occurred. At other times overlapping sequences were heard at widely spaced frequencies, giving rise to a variety of interactions as these unfurled downward. In one sequence, the initial buzzing was heard to have a sharp attack followed by decay and this resembled the striking of a large cathedral bell, minus its tone.

Eventually Bubble ran quietly down and at a given signal, Rachel Yezbick and Carole Kim stood up and approached a large gray latex bag in the center of the space. They entered  one at a time, until both were fully enveloped in its close folds. A wireless microphone was embedded with them and sent the internal sounds back to the computer for processing and into the sound system. All was quiet as the crouching shape lay motionless on the floor and this marked the beginning of The Ground Beneath Her Feet. The amorphous shape and the darkened space allowed the imagination to work, especially as the gray latex bag more or less completely obscured the human forms within. When lying or prone, the shape was seen as benign,  like a sleeping house cat. When creeping along the floor, the shape became something both strange and curious. The movement, the breathing sounds and the occasional suggestion of body and limbs convincingly conjured a presence that was alive. When the performers rose up and moved menacingly towards the audience,  seated just a few feet away with their backs against the wall, primal instincts took over and this change of posture suddenly felt threatening – as if a bear had wandered into Coaxial Arts. The entire performance was very engaging; that a large gray  bag containing two performers could evoke so many different perceptions was remarkable.

As expressed in the program notes, there were deeper intentions behind The Ground Beneath Her Feet:  “… the yearning for shape and the resulting assault against the surface when the desired form is untenable.” Taken from the title of a Salmon Rushdie book, this piece “reflects on the trauma of breaking through into new worlds, metamorphoses and aspiration.” As the work concluded there was much cheering and applause as the two performers emerged. This piece is physically strenuous and on a warm night Ms. Yezbick and Ms. Kim appeared as if they had just come from an extended workout in the gym. The Ground Beneath Her Feet vividly portrays the yearning and struggle for meaning while the striking movements and gestures of the performers completely captured the imagination of the audience.

Photo by Brittany Neimeth

 

by Paul Muller
Books, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?

Required Reading: Experimental Music Since 1970

experimental music since 1970

Book Review:

Experimental Music Since 1970

By Jennie Gottschalk

Bloomsbury, 2016

284 pp.

From the very beginning of Experimental Music Since 1970, author Jennie Gottschalk lets us know that her perspective is that of a “maker,” a composer. This is instructive as to the book’s approach and to its inclusion and, in some cases, exclusion, of experimental composers who have made an impact over the past five decades. These decisions are based on a particular composer’s vantage point rather than an attempt to construct an all-encompassing canon of “important” figures, which in the fragmented and various perspectives of the postmodern era no book could truly do without devolving into mere name-checking and cataloging. Happily, Gottschalk’s book is anything but a catalog — her portraits of various wings of experimental music are vivid and often detailed. It is the viewpoint of a fascinating “maker,” someone who embraces an array of imaginative approaches to musical experimentation.

Gottschalk suggests that one of the purposes of her volume is to serve as a continuation of Michael Nyman’s seminal Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond. Perhaps in response to the centrality of Cage in the earlier volume, she begins Experimental Music Since 1970 with a deconstruction of the composer’s 4’33”, pointing out the various pathways into experiment that the piece still affords today. Gottschalk identifies these central concerns as follows: indeterminacy, change, non-subjectivity, research, and experience. While it is quickly pointed out that not all experimental music engages all of these issues, they prove to be pivotal in the way that Gottschalk defines and describes experimentation.

With these initial precepts laid out, the book proceeds to further parse experimentation into particular spheres of activity, with each chapter tackling one or more of these. Thus we are spared a chronological overview and when concerns overlap in composers’ works, they may reappear throughout the volume. This does lead one to question certain choices of space allocation. For instances, even given all of his fertile creativity, why is Peter Ablinger so often referenced while microtonal composers Ezra Sims and Joe Maneri and hypercomplex composers Brian Ferneyhough and Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf are not mentioned even once? Apparently, the second modern school falls outside of Gottschalk’s purview. While one can fall back on her statement that she is a composer rather than a historian, it is somewhat disappointing that these significant types of experimentation seem “beyond the pale” (interestingly, there is similar neglect of American late modernism in Tim Rutherford-Johnson’s recent After the Fall: Music Since 1989). The presence of experimental jazz is also spotty, with a few references to artists such as Anthony Braxton and George Lewis but nothing about, for instance, Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane, and Sun Ra. Another challenge is some haphazard copy-editing, particularly in the book’s latter half.

These caveats aside, what is covered here is a splendor of imaginative music-making that will supply much food for thought. Gottschalk is particularly in her element when discussing the Wandelweiser collective, approaches to instrument-building, ad hoc electronics, improvisation, sound art, ecomusic in general and site-specific works in particular. The book’s inclusivity in terms of race, gender, and sexuality may, along with Rutherford-Johnson’s similarly sensitive treatment of these issues in Music Since 1989, help to slay a few stereotypes about composers. Gottschalk’s website, Sound Expanse, continues to build upon the achievements and aims of Experimental Music Since 1970, providing a valuable companion to the book and a “must bookmark” resource all by itself.

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

Marc Sabat and JACK – Harmony (CD)

 

Marc Sabat

Harmony

JACK Quartet

Canadian Composers Series #5

Another Timbre

 

Euler Spirals Scenery (2011), Claudiu Ptolemy (2008), Jean Philippe Rameau (2012)

 

A long time fixture on the Toronto scene as a string performer, improviser, and composer, Marc Sabat now resides in Berlin. However, he has taken his experimental penchant for tuning systems with him, writing in extended just intonation with a fluency that rivals Harry Partch and Ben Johnston’s own explorations of pitch. On the CD Harmony, JACK Quartet plays two quartets and a duo with rapt attention to the detailed nuances of Sabat’s pitch language and a keen sense of its corresponding flowing rhythms.

 

Euler Lattice Spirals Scenery (2011) is a five movement work that name checks various elements and personages of the intonation studies milieu. The first movement, Preludio, is subtitled “Les Quintes Justes” and it indeed does deal with sustained pure fifths in evocative fashion. Two of the movements, numbers two and five respectively, are titled Pythagoras Drawing. Movements three and four are each dedicated to a different composer who has been influential on Sabat; they are titled Harmonium for Claude Vivier and Harmonium for Ben Johnston. Each successive movement sends us a little further into the dark forest of dissonant overtones that accumulate on top of “Les Quintes Justes.” Thus, the entire piece can be seen as gradually revealing the compass of Sabat’s pitch palette.

 

Claudius Ptolemy (2008) is a duo, played by JACK violinist Christopher Otto and cellist Kevin McFarland (note: Jay Campbell now plays with the group). Open string double stops as well as dissonant intervals, harmonics, and ambling melodies combine in this adagio essay to make a fresh-sounding conglomeration of familiar playing techniques. The aforementioned “ambling affect” is one that Sabat shares with a number of his Canadian colleagues, not least Linda Catlin Smith, whose volume in the Canadian Composer Series (#1) appeared as a review here earlier in 2017. The final work on the Sabat CD is named after another important music theorist: Jean-Philippe Rameau (2012). Here the simultaneities are particularly fetching, with double-stops from multiple quartet members overlapping into beautiful chords. In one of his treatises( from 1737), Rameau struggled to describe the consonant and dissonant properties of just intonation: Sabat’s Rameau lays it out for all to hear with abundant clarity. 

 

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

Dog Star 13 – The Mean Harpsichord

On Thursday, June 15, 2017 Dog Star Volume 13 landed at the Cal Arts campus for a concert titled The Mean Harpsichord. No fewer than three harpsichords were in place at The Wild Beast, where every chair was filled with someone interested in hearing experimental music at the cutting edge. The 2017 Dog Star Orchestra series, a local new music tradition since 2005, featured a total of eleven concerts this year and has been running at various locations all around Los Angeles since June 3.

The first piece on the concert program was Tasten, by Eva-Maria Houben and for this two harpsichords were employed, manned by Robert Holliday and Sepand Shahab. Two soft notes by Holliday began Tasten, followed by an extended silence. About 30 seconds later, and almost as an answer, three separate notes were heard from the second harpsichord. More silence followed, allowing the notes to ring out and slowly decay. This pattern continued with the sounding of one, two or a few notes by each harpsichord, followed by an extended silence between.

The two harpsichords seemed to alternate in turn, but not strictly, and the extended silences acted to draw the listener into a heightened level of concentration. It was as if each set of notes added a clue to some larger form or structure. There were occasional seven or eight note phrases, but no chords, and the sounds were never hurried. This is very spare music, and it often seemed like a quiet conversation between two people who know each other very well – perhaps after dinner on a dark porch – with the long silences actually adding to the communication. The score for this was not conventionally notated, but was rather a page of instructions followed by several more pages of symbols and letters that gave the harpsichord players their cues. Tasten reduces pitch, rhythm and dynamic content to the minimum while at the same time raising the listeners awareness in ways that are not otherwise experienced in a conventional musical performance.

Arianna (Monteverdi) by Mark So followed, and for this some 10 musicians with their various instruments gathered while a field recording of street sounds and construction equipment was heard over the speaker system. A solemn, deep tone was heard from something like a small hand-pumped portable organ accompanied by softly sorrowful notes from a violin. Harpsichords joined in as well as a cello, creating a feeling of disconnection and loneliness that was very effective in combination with the impersonal sounds coming from the field recording. All of this was slow and stately – there was nothing rapid or with a rhythmic beat. The texture was smooth and lush, and some lovely harmonies were heard at times among the various instrument groupings. A pop tune and then some faint voices were heard in the field recording that contrasted with a series of low, mournful chords from the portable organ and strings. The strongly expressive feel of this piece was the result of distributing small sections of an original Claudio Monteverdi score to the various acoustic instruments. There was no effort to quote this music per se, but rather fragments of chords and harmonies were employed in diverse ways to create the richly haunting mood. Arianna (Monteverdi) is an impressive example of the creation of a new contemporary piece fashioned from the musical DNA of a 17th century Italian master.

Shadow Earth, by Michael Pisaro was next and this was performed by Sepand Shahab at the harpsichord. This began quietly with a few short sequences of notes, followed by some simple chords that unfolded into a modest dissonance as the piece progressed. Counterpoint appeared in the lower registers and this led to a series of thick chords that precipitated a dark, mysterious feel. There was no continuous beat or pulse in this music, but rather a sequence of brief, disconnected passages; sometimes these included chords with harmony and at other times just a few singular notes. It was very much the musical equivalent of a woodcut relief print – where the total is the sum of the ink markings and the white space – so that the viewer’s brain forms the completed image. The abstraction of the sound that is heard in this piece partners with the listener’s imagination. Shadow Earth nicely evokes the contrasting darkness and light of shadows in the same way – the music paints only a part of the image and the listener completes the picture.

(more…)

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

LA Percussion Quartet – Beyond (CD)

Los Angeles Percussion Quartet

Beyond

Works by Daniel Bjarnason, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Christopher Cerrone, Ellen Reid, and Andrew McIntosh

Sono Luminus 2XCD

Los Angeles Percussion Quartet performs on one of the most compelling releases of early 2017. Beyond (Sono Luminus, June 16, 2017) is a double-disc helping of new works for percussion ensemble by Daniel Bjarnason, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Christopher Cerrone, Ellen Reid, and Andrew McIntosh. All of these composers are up and coming stars in the new music world. Both Reid and Cerrone are New Yorkers (Reid is now based in NY and LA) who have taken Los Angeles by storm in recent seasons with opera and orchestra projects. Bjarnason and Thorvaldsdottir are Icelandic composers who both have a strong connection to the West Coast. McIntosh is very strongly identified with the LA scene, as a composer, string performer, and the guiding force behind Populist Records, one of the most interesting experimental labels out there (here is my recent review of a Populist release by Daniel Corral).

One of the fascinating things to hear on Beyond is the way in which each composer translates their musical approach to the percussive idiom. Thus, Bjarnason’s penchant for dynamic and scoring contrasts is demonstrated in Qui Tollis, a composition equally compelling in both its pianissimo and fortissimo passages. Thorvaldsdottir’s Aura maintains its creator’s fascination with pitched timbres and colorful clouds of harmony; these are deployed with a deft sense of ensemble interplay. Cerrone imports acoustic guitar and electronics in the five-movement suite Memory Palace. The places he references are familiar to New Yorkers, from the pastoral hues of “Harriman” to the tense ostinatos of “L.I.E.” (Long Island Expressway, for those of you who have the blissful fortune to be unaware of this stress-filled commuter highway), and his depictions ring true. Fear-Release by Reid presents a dramatic use of unfurling cells of rhythmic activity alongside pensive pitched percussion. Its coda for metallophones is particularly fetching; after all of the built up tension of the piece’s main body, it serves as a kind of exhalation.

The culminating, and most substantial, work on the recording is McIntosh’s I Hold the Lion’s Paw, a nine-movement long piece some three quarters of an hour in duration. Much of its composer’s music concerns itself with microtones and alternate tunings – he is experienced in playing both Early music’s temperaments as well as contemporary explorations of tuning. Thus it is no surprise that McIntosh’s pitch template for I Hold the Lion’s Paw is an extended one. However, this is just one aspect of a multi-faceted piece, which also makes extensive use of low drums and cymbals for a ritualistic colloquy. Still more ritualized, taking on an almost sacramental guise, is the pouring of water and striking of ceramics filled with water. Every percussionist I know loves an instrument-making assignment and McIntosh doesn’t disappoint: DIY elements include aluminum pipes, cut to fit. None of the elements of this significant battery of instruments seems out of place: despite the use of water, I Hold the Lion’s Paw is no “kitchen sink” piece. On the contrary, it is a thoughtfully constructed and sonically beguiling composition. Several excellent percussion ensembles are currently active: Los Angeles Percussion Quartet is certainly an estimable member of this elite cohort.

by Christian Carey