Attacca Quartet Real Life Sony Music CD/DL Kronos Quartet excepted, there have been a lot of really bad arrangements of pop music for string quartet. Part of the problem is that the arrangers of these covers attempt to translate a medium that involves amplification, electronics, and a flexible sense of rhythm into straight notation for acoustic ensemble. Attacca Quartet’s Real Life, on the other hand, sees the opportunity for collaboration in electronic music covers. Their recordings are subjected to production from some of the top electronic musicians in the industry: Tokimonsta, Squarepusher, and Daedelus among them. The songs
Read moreCaroline Shaw – Orange Attaca Quartet Nonesuch/New Amsterdam CD Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 2013, Caroline Shaw has been a busy musician in the years following, performing as a vocalist with Roomful of Teeth (which recorded her prizewinning work Partita), violinist with ACME, and recording with Kanye West (yes, that Kanye West!). Shaw’s versatility and abundant creativity has kept her in demand for new commissions. Despite all this, Orange is the first portrait CD of her music. It is the first recording in a new partnership between Nonesuch and New Amsterdam Records. Given her own string instrument background, it
Read moreSince no one listens to contemporary classical music, and it doesn’t get put on concert programs, to have a new work not only recorded but recorded again, by different musicians, is an impossible dream. But that’s what happens when you’re John Adams, America’s leading composer. And deservedly so, because he’s a deeply skilled and intelligent composer with serious things to say and the aesthetic to say them clearly, expressively and winningly without pandering to or patronizing his audience. But he is a busy man, and some of his recent work, like Absolute Jest and The Gospel According to the Other
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