Best Of 12: Part Two

Is there an opposite of "ado"? Here goes...

1. The Walkmen - Heaven I've been along for the ride with Hamilton Leithauser & Co. since the first album and it has been a joy to hear them grow. Each album has expanded on their sound and explored further reaches within it. Even in the context of their progression, Heaven is a bold and startling leap forward. Perhaps touring with Fleet Foxes (and working with their producer, Phil Ek) gave Leithauser the confidence to wipe away the reverb and just sing out. His crystal clear tenor perfectly embodies songs that, for all their individuality, touch the elemental core of why we sing in the first place, and the band plays with a sizzling passion. There's something elemental about Heaven that looks back to bedrock artists like Buddy Holly - and even further back, to the earliest troubadours. The Walkmen connect with the lifeblood of music and directly to my heart.

2. Breton - Other People's Problems These brilliant 21st century art-rockers have given their all this year, touring extensively, releasing this dark (but never despairing) and often funky album, the terrific Blanket Rule EP, and ending the year with a killer single, Population Density. Can't say I'm sure why they remain cult-bound in this country, but it is certainly not because I've slacked on spreading the word. Get the memo.

3. Father John Misty - Fear Fun It was a great moment when the first video from this transcendent album dropped into my iTunes. All those Dum Dum Girls tracks Sub Pop had been foisting on me were quickly forgotten when I got a taste of J.Tillman's new persona. Bitingly witty and with the best singing and songwriting of his career, the new name seems to have begotten almost an entirely new artist out of whole cloth. The hip-shaking, slightly pissed off Misty also deserves to be called Performer Of The Year - catch him if you can. And I was having so much fun singing along to I'm Writing A Novel that I barely worried who was going to be the new sticks man for my beloved Fleet Foxes.

4. Frank Ocean - Channel Orange Deep and delightful, dirty and sublime, this album singlehandedly redefined modern R&B. It's also a unifying force, appearing on more year-end lists than any other album as far as I can tell. Sometimes you just can't argue with ubiquity. One caveat: the first time I listened to the hamhanded Super Rich Kids was also the last.

5. Jeremy Denk - Ligeti/Beethoven Programming concerts and albums to cause communication across the centuries is fairly common practice these days. Denk just follows through on the concept in more dazzling fashion than most. Somehow he gets Ligeti's ultra-knotty Etudes to breathe, and their twists, turns and spikes prepare your ears to re-experience Beethoven's Sonata No. 32 with an alertness to every detail. When the Sonata ends and we are returned to Ligeti's world, it seems perfectly natural for both composers to occupy the same universe. It's a journey you'll want to repeat.

6. Domenico - Ciné Privé Miguel Atwood-Ferguson has his hands in so many things that it should be no surprise that he was my introduction to this bewitching Brazilian musician. Spare yet immersive grooves limn relaxed vocals that speak to me regardless of any language barrier. Members of Wilco guest on this fantastic album, which was recorded some years ago but is just now getting a U.S. release featuring Atwood-Ferguson's string-bedecked remix of Receita.

7. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music This is the album us die-hard Killer Mike fans have been waiting for since his OutKast-assisted debut back in 2003. Bona fide block rocking beats from Brooklyn's own El-P provide the perfect foundation for Mike's raps, which range from heartfelt to enraged. His demolition of Ronald Reagan's legacy is so complete that when he points out that the ex-President's name is (numerologically speaking) the number of the beast, you just nod your head. Hopefully all the attention R.A.P. Music is getting will shine a light on PL3DGE, his last album, which was nearly as good.

8. Bob Dylan - Tempest I literally feel pity for those whose inability to tolerate Dylan's current voice(s) is preventing them from hearing the mastery at work on this bloody-minded album. As the man himself puts it in Narrow Way: "If I can't work up to you, you'll surely have to work down to me someday." Don't just take Bob's legendary staus for granted, open your mind and ears and experience it for yourself as it's happening.

9. The Darcys - Aja In which the Toronto band remakes Steely Dan's multi-platinum masterpiece in their own image. It's an act of homage that dismantles the object of The Darcys affections, exposing the darkness at its core. When I asked lead singer Jason Couse if Becker and Fagen had heard their baby's new incarnation, he was only able to report that a Dropbox had been accessed by Becker's assistant. Hopefully they "got the news" by now. You can get it for free.

10. Talea Ensemble - Fausto Romitelli: Anamorphosis In concert after concert around the world, this adventurous and virtuosic group is bringing the composed music of our times to full-blooded life. Their debut album features world premieres of five pieces by Romitelli, who died at 41 in 2004, all played to perfection. On February 4th, 2013, Talea will be paying tribute to patron Ralph Kaminsky, alongside other new music luminaries including Alarm Will Sound and the JACK Quartet, at Merkin Concert Hall. I wouldn't miss it!

Still to come: Best Of The Rest and Out Of The Past (reissues and other older sounds)

The Music of Romitelli, Talea & Kaminsky

How does new music come into your life? It could be a podcast, a magazine, a personal recommendation, one of those cute little notes on the shelf of a good record store, a streaming service, or even the radio. Sometimes, unfortunately, it comes through the death of a friend. Ralph Kaminsky, who died in January, was the second husband of an old family friend of mine. I hadn't seen him frequently but knew him as a passionate devotee of music, mainly Wagner, and as a mentor to young musicians, especially from disadvantaged backgrounds. Some time in the past decade, that had changed.

While still a Wagnerian, he had become deeply involved with the new music scene, especially in New York. I learned this at his memorial service from the obituary his widow prepared. My surprise quickly turned to admiration. He had become a patron and passionate supporter of an area of the arts that can sometimes lack for friends. As is the custom, the obituary suggested a few places to make a donation in Ralph's memory, with one being particularly close to his heart: The Talea Ensemble. I like to think that I'm fairly au courant - I know my Eighth Blackbirds, my JACK Quartets, my Bang On A Cans - but here was an established new music group in my own backyard and I had no inkling of their existence.

I explored their website and made a donation. They seemed to be up to some very interesting stuff and it also turned out that they were wonderful people as well. Elizabeth Weisser, violist and Development Director, sent me a nice email, thanking me for the contribution, and an even nicer note. In the months since, I've seen three of their concerts, attended their gala and become friendly with Beth and Alex Lipowski, the percussionist and Executive Director. Both of them joined my team for the 3rd Annual Hope & Heroes Walk (an event near and dear to me personally and professionally) - talk about nice!

Despite being founded in 2007, Talea has only just come out with their first album: Anamorphosis, focusing on the work of the late Fausto Romitelli. What a perfect choice - this is the first Romitelli on an American label (Tzadik) and all five works are world premiere recordings. There is a spirit of public service and impassioned ambassadorship - call it proselytizing, if you will - about everything Talea does so this makes fits right in to their overarching project. It is hard to imagine better acolytes to spread the gospel of Romitelli. As always, their playing is superb and never academic. The recording is gorgeous, simultaneously warm and crystalline, with a sense of the dimensions of the space inhabited by the instruments that makes the album immediately engaging.

Romitelli was born in 1963 and was firmly a member of the rock generation. A quote from the CD booklet says: "Ever since I was born, I have been immersed in digital images, synthetic sound and artifacts. Artificial, distorted, filtered - this is the nature of man today." He also mentions that an "increasing importance is given to the sonorities of non-academic derivation and to the sullied, violent sound of a prevalently metallic origin of certain rock and techno music." His final work (2011) was called An Index Of Metals, after a piece by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno on their album Evening Star.

For all that, the pieces on Amamorphosis have more in common with the work of Messiaen, Boulez, and Ligeti than with Nine Inch Nails or King Crimson. Very few of the sounds here would be mistaken for rock music but it is in the DNA of the way the drums push the rhythm along in Amok Koma, in the glacial surfaces of La Sabbia Del Tempo, and the distorted guitar of Blood On The Floor, Painting 1986. Like Gerard Grisey, to whom he pays homage in the second part of Domeniche Alla Perferia Dell'Impero, Romitelli was a master of orchestration. He seems to embody the essence of each instrument he chooses to compose for, with a deep understanding of their characters and possibilities. The bass clarinet figures in the Grisey homage evoke nothing other than the opening of Rhapsody In Blue, a signature work by another pioneer of mongrel music who died too soon - and that's just one example.

Romitelli's mastery of arrangement and structure makes for a lush and inviting sound world even when the music is at its spikiest, and Talea delivers every note perfectly. If "new music" is not in your repertoire or if Romitelli is unfamiliar to you, start here.

Ralph Kaminsky's death brought music into my life in another way when his wife generously asked me if I wanted to look through what remained of his CD collection after they donated the bulk of the contemporary music recordings to Talea for their library. I was very moved by the offer and had a pretty good idea of what I would find: Wagner, and lots of it. I am now the proud owner of three Ring cycles instead of one and second and third recordings of nearly every major Wagner opera. There was also some Mozart, Verdi, Strauss, Berg, and miscellany, most of them impeccable recordings and some out of print. This is a true gift to me as I agree with my brother in law when he says "Opera exists in the mind" - and the more recordings and approaches you can hear and see of a work the closer you are to grasping its totality.

I am grateful to Ralph and his family in so many ways for bringing all of this great music into my life and am happy to give these recordings, so lovingly assembled, a good home. Slowly going through the two boxes of CD's has been a real treat. Although my wife is not an opera lover and hopes to never hear Verdi's Don Carlo again, we were surprised at how delightful we both found Wagner's early work, Die Feen. That my wife now has a favorite Wagner opera is a whole other kind of gift!

 

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