From its very first shimmer, Nova Atlantis feels like a threshold slowly brightening, a sonic coastline where centuries meet and dissolve into one another rather than remaining neatly on opposite shores. Miako Klein, moving between Baroque violin, recorder, and electronics, and Jia Lim, tending a replica harpsichord entwined with circuitry, do not merely revive the past or ornament the present. They braid them into a single breathing organism whose pulse is at once archival and prophetic. The album drifts outward from Francis Bacon’s unfinished 1626 vision of a knowledge-bound utopia, yet it refuses the posture of illustration. Instead, Bacon’s imagined
Read moreTransylvanian Dance Lucian Ban, piano Mat Maneri, viola ECM Records “These folk songs teach us many things.” Transylvanian Dance is the second recording on ECM by pianist Lucian Ban and violist Mat Maneri; the first was Transylvanian Concert (2013). As the album title suggests, the duo explores Eastern European material, specifically that collected by Béla Bartók. Ban was born in Romania and delights in the fascinating polyrhythms of this region. Maneri is well versed in the microtonal and multi-scalar aspects of folk song. These are not mere transcriptions. Maneri has described them in interviews as, “a springboard,” a
Read moreObsidian Kit Downes, organ and composer; Tom Challenger, tenor saxophone ECM Records Prior to this recording, Kit Downes was primarily known as a pianist in jazz settings, notably leading his own trio and quintet. Obsidian is his debut CD as a leader for ECM Records; he previously appeared on the label as part of the Time is a Blind Guide release in 2015. However, Downes has a substantial background as an organist as well. The program on this recording consists primarily of his own works for organ, but there is also a noteworthy folk arrangement and engaging duet with tenor
Read moreInto the Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation, and the Dream of Freedom before 1970 By David Toop Bloomsbury, 330 pp. Even given the relative expanse of a projected two-volume history of improvised music, David Toop has set lofty goals for himself. In volume one, Into the Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation, and the Dream of Freedom before 1970, he discusses a number of musical figures from improvising communities: Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Steve Beresford, Keith Rowe, Ornette Coleman, and Eric Dolphy are a small sampling of those who loom large. John Cage is a totemic figure discussed from a variety of angles. Such
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Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Flute, Houston, Improv, Interviews, jazz, Performers
Imani Winds: Jeff Scott, Toyin Spellman-Diaz, Valerie Coleman, Monica Ellis, and Mariam Adam. (Photo by Matthew Murphy) (Houston, TX) Since the group’s inception in 1997, the Imani Winds have continued to expand the relatively small-sized repertoire for wind quintet by commissioning several works by such forward-thinking composers as Alvin Singleton, Roberto Sierra, Stefon Harris, Daniel Perez, Mohammed Fairouz, and Houston’s own Jason Moran. Moran’s four-movement work Cane, Moran’s first composition for wind quintet, appears on the Imani Winds’ 2010 album Terra Incognita, along with pieces by two other jazz masters, Paquito D’Rivera and Wayne Shorter. (The Imani Winds appear on
Read moreShh! We’re improvising! The Lepers of Melancholy, Houston TX (photo by Jonathan Jindra) While reading Conversing With Cage at a bus stop today, I stumbled across this funny yet in the end profound exchange (circa 1980) between John Cage and John Robert with Silvey Panet Raymond: How do you consider new popular music – punk, New Wave? What is the New Wave? I don’t really know what it is. If you could point it out to me, I might have some reaction. It’s very simple, three – , four-chord stuff, aggressive, fast. There’s a good deal of dancing on the
Read moreSkeletons! Witches! Vampires! No, I’m not talking about candidates in Houston’s midterm elections. I’m talking about Halloween and the two days that follow known as Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. Like many other places in the Southern U.S., Houston culture is a healthy mix of the supernatural and the spiritual. In the Mexican tradition of Dia de los Meurtos, food, beverages, and sweets are placed on homemade alters as gifts for the spiritual manifestations of those who have passed who will, over the course of the 48 hours that is All Saints Day and All Soul’s
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Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, Flute, Houston, Improv, Percussion, Performers, Sound Art, Women composers
Pyramid and Michelle Yom at Labotanica (Houston, TX) This Friday, October 1st at 7pm, Michelle Yom will present her sound performance installation Back To Imagined Spaces at Houston’s alternative arts and music venue Labotanica located at 2316 Elgin Street. This is a part of Labotanica’s ongoing Hear/Her/Ear series spotlighting women in experimental music. I got a chance to hear Michelle last month in a solo vocal set at Avant-Garden where she recorded and looped her singing in real time to additively build a series of haunting chorales. Michelle is perhaps best known as a flautist with a strong classical technique
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