Tag: Populist Records

Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles

Populist Records – Tuesdays @ Monk Space

On Tuesday, November 22, 2022, Brightwork newmusic’s Tuesday@Monk Space was host to the populist records recording label and several of their artists in a concert titled Ten Years of populist records. Andrew McIntosh, Rachel Beetz, Nicholas Deyoe and Aperture Duo all performed in a selection of music heard on CDs released over the ten year history of populist records. It was good to see a big crowd at Monk Space with everyone getting reacquainted after the scarcity of live performances during the pandemic.

Eggs and Baskets (1987), by Tom Johnson was the first piece on the concert program and was performed by Rachel Beetz, flute and Andrew McIntosh, violin. This is one of Johnson’s more distinctive forms, musical works driven by mathematics. The narration by Adrianne Pope explained that the notes of the flute and the violin illustrated how a number of eggs could be distributed among two baskets in all possible combinations. With two eggs – one in each basket – the flute, then the violin – each sounded a short note. Then the two eggs were placed, in turn, into each of the baskets and so the flute sounded two notes, followed by the violin. As the number of eggs increased, the placing of the eggs in the two baskets in all possible combinations grew more complex, with more pitches and notes coming from each instrument. In this way, a straightforward mathematical concept was spun into the structure of a whimsical musical piece reminiscent of Johnson’s earlier work, narayana’s cows.

As the number of eggs grew to five, 32 separate notes were required to account for all the possibilities of eggs in the two baskets. The notes now began to be perceived as a series of musical phrases and not simply as markers for the eggs; Beetz and McIntosh traded their notes with great precision and a fine sense of timing. At the finish, all of the combinations, from six eggs down to two, were played without pausing, and the stream of notes at various pitches now resembled music more than mathematics. All this all proved to be highly entertaining – Eggs and Baskets exemplifies how extraordinary music can be crafted from ordinary arithmetic.

Cat Lamb’s frame/frames (2009) followed, and this began with a sustained tone from an open violin string played by McIntosh. This pitch remained steady and constant throughout the piece while Rachel Beetz accompanied on a bass flute. The tone from the flute began at the same pitch as the violin, but was then bent slightly through a series of extended techniques. Ms. Beetz used alternate fingering as well as over-blowing and under-blowing to vary the pitch, sometimes only by a few cents and at other times by quarter or even half-tones. This produced a variety of intriguing blends and interactions as the flute note weaved in and around the steady pitch of the violin. All of the variations were sounded by the flute, and this was the more difficult instrument of the two to do so – but the playing was accomplished with great skill by Ms. Beetz. There is a haunting and introspective feel to this piece and it requires the listener to focus on the subtle changes. fame/frames provides a valuable illustration of the intimate relationships that are possible between similar pitches beyond those heard in conventional harmony.

My memories are never an accurate representation (2008), by Andrew Tholl was next, a solo piece performed by Andrew McIntosh on violin. Although very short, it was packed with every sort of advanced playing technique thought possible – and some that were not. There were squeaks, rapid runs of notes, fast phrases and great jumps in pitch. There was nothing like a melody or structure to this, just a series of highly expressive gestures and sounds. Andrew McIntosh played all this with accuracy and poise in a show of great virtuosity.

Stillness Is the Move (2022), by Rachel Beetz was next, performed by the composer. Ms. Beetz played the flute that was wired for computer audio processing, a foot pedal for looping and a position sensor worn on her head like a boom mike. As the position of her head moved up and down, the processed pitch of the flute notes also changed up or down. As the piece proceeded, bursts of flute notes were heard, like flowers sprayed into the sunshine. The sound was both airy and beautiful, producing a feeling of warm optimism. Ms. Beetz then lowered her head and the pitches of the flute were processed downward, creating an active rumbling which was looped and sustained. More higher pitches followed and these provided a vivid contrast. As the pitches changed and more sustain was activated, interesting harmonies often broke out, adding to a dreamlike quality overall. For all their complexity, the electronic elements performed flawlessly during the performance and the close acoustic of Monk Space revealed every detail in the resulting sound. The computer processing, sound amplification and flute tones worked well together and the result was very polished. Stillness Is the Move made a great first impression and this electronic configuration, combined with inspired flute playing, shows great promise.

Transgressions (2019), by Andrew McIntosh followed, performed by Aperture Duo with Adrianne Pope, violin and Linnea Powell, viola. This began with a sustained pitch in the viola, answered by the violin. Electronic sounds entered in a sort of counterpoint and this led into a nice interaction between the various tones. Some solitary pizzicato followed and the dry drawing of a bow across the strings, without intonation, added to a sense of mystery. Various extended techniques were heard with short bursts of tones, inviting the listener to appreciate the many subtle interactions and interesting harmonies. The playing by Aperture Duo was skillful and exact with Transgressions extending the vocabulary of their string duo in new and unusual directions.

The final piece of the concert was Nebula/Mattie (2022) by Nicholas Deyoe, who performed this on an electric guitar connected to a formidable array of processing modules, foot pedals and amplifiers. Each strum of the guitar brought forth a great wave of processed sound that was full of power and harmony. Even very light touches on the guitar strings translated into big sounds, and the reflections off the brick walls of Monk Space provided additional amplification. Deyoe went from strumming the guitar to bowing the strings and this seemed to increase the power by adding a stronger sense of continuity to the processed tones. At times it felt like standing in front of a thundering waterfall with the sound physically beating through your body.

Towards the finish, the bow was discarded and a guitar pick was employed. The notes were now heard singly and then processed into a shower of sounds like roman candles bursting in the air on the Fourth of July. This was not as relentless as the bowed sounds and made for a nice contrast in texture. Nebula/Mattie was an impressive solo performance demonstrating just how much sonic power can be deployed by a musician with no fear.

Ten Years of populist records was a reminder of how favored we are in Los Angeles to have several small record labels dedicated to the recording of local new music. The merchandise table offered a large number of populist CDs, a visible sign of their success and our good fortune.

by Paul Muller
Contemporary Classical

Catherine Lamb – Point/Wave

Catherine Lamb – Point/Wave

Giacomo Fiore

Populist Records

Los Angeles-based Populist Records has released a new digital recording by Catherine Lamb titled Point/Wave. Performed by Italian guitarist Giacomo Fiore, Point/Wave features a single 55 minute track that combines Fiore’s guitar playing with environmental sounds processed by an electronic synthesizer jointly developed by Lamb and Bryan Eubanks. The guitar tuning and electronic processing are both in just intonation.

Point/Wave is written for acoustic guitar in just intonation where the tuning of the strings is based on whole number harmonic ratios instead of equal divisions of the octave that comprise our conventional temperament. As the liner notes indicate, the acoustic guitar was chosen for this piece because guitars “… are easy to retune, as strings and soundbox alike are generally more resilient to scordatura than bowed instruments. Thus one can implement ad hoc tuning systems by tuning the open strings in whole-number ratios, and by limiting the performance of notes only to those frets that approximate just intervals (such as major seconds, perfect fourths, and perfect fifths).” Additionally, the tuning specified by Lamb has the highest harmonic of the series tuned on the lowest string (transposed down two octaves). This might be analogous to freeing the melody from the bass line in a conventional piece, allowing “…one to explore the movements within each modal segment of the piece without necessarily relating it to a common ground.”

The electronic component of Point/Wave is similarly crafted with care. This is built around the Secondary Rainbow Synthesizer, a device that processes environmental sounds through a series of filtering stages into a gentle wash – in just intonation. The ambient sounds for this performance were field recordings of the people and traffic just outside of Fiore’s home in the Sunset district of San Francisco. This track of ambient sounds was processed by the Secondary Rainbow Synthesizer and then played in the recording studio along with the live guitar. The challenge, as described in the liner notes, was that “Changes in harmony occur based on a combination of external sound excitation and internal timers in a manner that is unpredictable for the performer aside from a subtle cross-fading. As the guitar part is itself cyclical, the resulting texture is a constantly changing alignment of harmonic fields, sometimes reinforcing one another, other times slightly at odds.”

So what does all this sound like? The electronic track opens the piece with warm, sustained pitches that hover in the air with a slight ringing sound. It creeps in stealthily, like the fog on a San Francisco evening, enveloping the listener in a smooth, continuous wash. The filtering process by the Secondary Rainbow Synthesizer recalls the classic Alvin Lucier piece I am Sitting in a Room, wherein spoken words are repeatedly recorded and played back in a room such that the sounds are reduced to their component resonant tones and pitches for that space. There is a sense here that the original street sounds have been distilled to their ultimate essence, adding a luminous patina to the overall electronic texture. This music requires close listening to perceive the subtle harmonic shifts and soft changes that are always occurring. There is no beat or pulse to form a rhythmic structure in the electronics; Point/Wave is propelled entirely by its harmonic possibilities.

After an introduction, the entry of the guitar at 2:35 provides a sharp contrast with a series of single notes that stand out vividly against the gentle sounds of the electronics. The tuning of the guitar allows its notes and subsequent overtones to ring out and interact with the electronic tones underneath. The guitar notes are solitary and stately, always leaving space for the sounds to intertwine. It is as if the guitar is in dialog with the extracted musical quintessence of the ambient natural world. Point/Wave is an extended conversation, taking some 55 minutes to complete, and it stays within a consistent construction. The liner notes state: “In this piece, however, nothing follows the introduction; rather we are invited to explore its harmonic spaces as they develop through the interactions of its sonorous parts…”

It is easy to admire the technical achievements here, and the excellent performance by Giacomo Fiore. The real significance of this piece, however, goes further. The processing of ambient street sounds into expressions of their essential tones allows the musician to interact with the environment on equal terms, using a common language. This makes the harmonic dialog that much richer and alters the traditional perspective of music as commentary. Point/Wave is expanding musical communication into a new and exciting place.

Point/Wave can be streamed in its entirety at Bandcamp:

For further inquiries please contact Populist Records via email: info@populistrecords.com.

by Paul Muller
CDs, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Los Angeles

Daniel Corral: “Refractions” (Populist Records)

Refractions

Daniel Corral

Populist Records CD PR012

Jeremy Kerner, electric guitar; Isaura String Quartet; Corral, music box and laptop

LA-based Populist Records has released another treasure trove of unusual ambience. Daniel Corral’s Refractions, featuring the composer on music box laptop alongside electric guitarist Jeremy Kerner and the Isaura String Quartet, captures a compelling ambient composition. Delicate strains from guitar and strings are offset by bell-like interjections from Corral’s music box and swaths of sustained sounds from his laptop. The piece begins with all of these various textures and gradually is winnowed down to the music box, supplying minimal punctuations and offset repetitions in a slow ritardando until the piece’s delicate denouement and eventual close. Given the deliberate limitation of resources and lassitude of pacing, this slowly evolving piece of music is spellbinding in its execution. Rather than foregrounding the incremental shifts of material, the listener is encouraged to bask in a wash of sounds, varied and lovely timbres that are deployed with enough independence to seem to have minds of their own.

Save

by Christian Carey
Ambient, CDs, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles

Refractions Album Release Show at Automata

On May 6, 2017 Populist Records presented a CD release concert at Automata in Los Angeles featuring Refractions, a new album by Daniel Corral. The Koan String Quartet and guitarist Jeremy Kerner joined Corral playing music box and laptop to perform the entire album. A full house was in attendance on a chilly but otherwise quiet Saturday night in Chinatown.

The evening began with two improvisational duos in the Persian tradition by Timothy Maloof and Rahman Baranghoori who arrived with violins and a recorded drone. The first of these duos began softly with sustained tones in the violin against the calming  drone. The second violin entered in counterpoint, and this added to an exotic – but never alien – overall feel. The violins traded off between the sustaining melody and active counterpoint and at length, smoothly beautiful vocals by Baranghoori filled the room. The program notes explained that “The singing will be a poem in Farsi and will be decided upon in the moment – the development of the piece and the mood will dictate the poem.” Although the tones resembled our European major mode the “intonation is different than the even-tempered major scale.” In any event, the result was astonishingly expressive. There was a mournfully stoic and nostalgic wistfulness in the singing that seemed to draw from several thousand years of Persian history – perhaps the cultural memory of some great loss. That both music and poetry were improvised on the spot was all the more impressive given its beguiling effect: this was clearly the product of a very long and sophisticated tradition.

The second improvisation was built around the same recorded drone and was similar in form, but somewhat darker and more dramatic in tone. The string passages were busier and contained a bit of uncertainty while the vocals felt more plaintive and yearning. All of this simply increased the already high level of expression heard throughout this music, adding to the remarkable artistry.

After a short intermission the balance of the evening was given over to a complete performance of Refractions, the new CD by Daniel Corral. The Koan Quartet took their places along with Jeremy Kerner on electric guitar and Corral on music box and laptop. Refractions began with quiet plinking by the music box and soft, wispy sounds from the Koan Quartet as the players moved their bows lightly over the strings, barely intoning the high pitches. There was a nostalgic, wistful feeling to this as the notes from the music box approximated something like a lullaby. This placid feeling was extended by the gentle tones now coming from the strings.

As the piece progressed the passages became shorter and stronger, but somewhat less connected. Pizzicato figures and the guitar added to a more complex texture – and the music box contributed a series of short trills – but the leisurely pace and generally soft dynamics maintained the overall sense of mystical serenity. The electronics morphed into a quiet rattle and eventually the string players joined in, softly rapping and knocking on their instruments. When the arco harmonies occurred, they were especially lovely in contrast. The increasingly sharp percussive effects – and the more disconnected character of the piece by the 35 minute mark – seemed to suggest some contention between the electronics and the strings. Towards the end however, the music box returned to prominence with its lullaby and the soothing chords now heard in the strings restored order at the finish.

The acoustics of the small Automata space seemed to work in favor of this very subdued music. The Isaura String Quartet performed on the CD, and this is more intimate yet – Refractions is clearly the kind of work that benefits from precise mastering in the studio. The live performance, however, did not suffer in any way and the playing throughout was precise and controlled. The cool ambient tranquility of Refractions is a much needed antidote to the raucous confusion that infests our daily lives; this music works to elegantly recharge us in a moment of restorative calm.

Refractions is available directly from Populist Records, in physical CD format or digital download.

The Koan Quartet is:

Eric K.M. Clark, violin
Orin Hidestad, violin
Cassia Streb, viola
Jennifer Bewerse, cello

 

 

by Paul Muller