Record Roundup: New Music Cavalcade

The turns of history that have transpired since I started this post are even more head-spinning than the kaleidoscopic variety of music I discuss below. But the fact remains that whatever happens in the world of politics, we will always have artists to inspire us and reflect the world back to us in ways that lend perspective, strength, and solace. With the monumental election now behind us, the end of the year also seems to approach ever more rapidly. However, I will attempt to get one or two more "regular" posts up before we start delineating the best of 2020. Because, yes, there is yet more mind-blowing music to cover!

Tracks from the albums below, and many others, can be found here or below. Click follow to make sure you don't miss a thing.

  

Ash Fure - Something To Hunt The first time I heard Echoes by Pink Floyd (which was shamefully late in the game), I thought, "This should be played in concert halls around the world." So when I put on this album, the first portrait collection of Fure's music (also shamefully late!), I felt my vision coming to a certain kind of reality. Especially on Shiver Lung (2016), which opens the album, there's a sense of distant observation, narrative sweep, and mounting terror that brings some of the legendary band's sounds and structures into the realm of contemporary composition most effectively. I'm not surprised to read that it's an excerpt from a longer work, The Force Of Things: An Opera for Objects, as Pink Floyd themselves fruitlessly pursued an album made solely for household objects. As heard here, Shiver Lung is a landmark work of nearly pure sound that makes astonishingly original use of the forces of the International Contemporary Ensemble, who perform most of the pieces on the record. I've probably rung this bell too often already, but if you have some bigger speakers in your house, let it rip on them for full immersion. Something To Hunt (2014) is more recognizable as ultra-modern chamber music, although of a highly distinctive nature, with strings plucked and stroked, and a dynamic architecture that edges towards chaos before pulling back. 

Soma (2012), a reflection on Fure's grandmother's Parkinson's disease, is a restless assemblage of piano notes, rustling strings, and white noises, and would fascinate even without knowing the inspiration behind it. The most stripped-down piece here is A Library on Lightning (2018), which makes the most of a trio of trumpet, bassoon, and double bass, ranging from skeletal stretches to furious conglomerations for a discomfiting 14 minutes. Bound To The Bow (2016) is presented in a spellbinding live recording by the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra and brings us full circle to the sound world of Shiver Lung, with shimmering electronics blending with the acoustic instruments. It's edge-of-your-seat stuff and the perfect conclusion to Something To Hunt, which finally begins to slake the thirst I've had to dive into Fure's music, which, like that of Anna Thorvaldsdottir is highly complex but holds broad appeal. Don't miss it.

Anna Thorvaldsdottir - Rhízōma Speaking of this Icelandic wonder, her first portrait album, which introduced me to her music nearly a decade ago, has been reissued in a stunning remaster by Sono Luminus, and includes a new recording of Dreaming performed by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. You have no excuse to miss it the second time around.

Jacqueline Leclair - Music For English Horn Alone Funny how the world converges sometimes. Just today I started catching up with the awesome podcast from TAK Ensemble, listening to Hannah Kendall interview Elaine Mitchener and thinking I need to follow up on both of them. Then I plucked this album off my teetering stack and spotted Kendall's name among the seven composers Leclaire included here. At just over three minutes, Kendall's piece is short but characterful. Called Joe (2006),  and based on the photo of the same name by Richard Boll, it asks more questions than it answers while conveying empathy for its subject. Leclair's technique in this world premiere recording is flawless, as it is throughout this concise collection. There's plenty of variety here, too. In The City At Night (2008) by Jenni Brandon has some of Gershwin's jazzy insouciance, full of dance rhythms and narrative thrust, while Kara Obermüller's different forms of phosphorous (2020) tends towards abstraction, exploring extended techniques. Perhaps most radical is Música invisible (2004) by Cecilia Arditto, which has Leclair removing the reed and bocal to make some very human noises. 

The Obermüller and Arditto pieces are also recorded for the first time, as is Layered Lament (1984) by Faye-Ellen Silverman, which in its use of electronics is at least 20 years ahead of its time. Besides just being a good listen, such advocacy and archiving make Music For English Horn Alone, which also includes fascinating works by Meera Gudipati and Lisa Bielawa, a truly important release and one that will define this repertoire, for years to come.

Dominique Lemaître - De l’espace trouver la fin et le milieu This gorgeously recorded collection of Lemaître's cello music, played with mastery and a deep connection by Dan Barrett, was my introduction to the French composer. Based on these jewel-toned pieces, which often tingle the spine and always engage the mind, I'm ready to deepen the friendship. The album opens with Orange and yellow II (2013), in a transcription from the original two-viola version, making full use of the eight strings as Barrett duets with Stanislav Orlovsky. Inspired by Mark Rothko and written in tribute to Morton Feldman, the two cellos pursue a dialogue that is as riveting as listening in on a conversation by dazzling intellects. Like many of the pieces, the highly resonant acoustic is almost another instrument, with notes hanging in the air and echoing in the distance. 

Mnaïdra (1992) and Plus haut (2018) are the two solo works here and a good measure of how Lemaître's work has developed over the years. The former is lyrical and almost folk-like, with gentle strums and tidy melodies, while the latter is an epic of abstract yearning, ending with a series of piercing repeated notes ("higher" - as implied by the title) that will stay with you for some time. Pianist Jed Distler is on hand for Stances, hommage à Henri Dutilleux (2015), which has single notes from the keyboard decorating long, ruminative lines from the cello, like sunlight sparkling on water, and you would likely not need the title to recognize Lemaître's debt to his fellow French master. The album also includes Thot (1994), which has Barrett playing with clarinetist Michiyo Suzuki in a wonderfully hushed exploration of woody textures. Read the notes and you will find that Lemaître is, in some ways, what you might expect from a cultured French composer: elegant, well-read, well-traveled, and with phenomenally assured technical skills. But that doesn't mean that this music isn't quietly surprising and the fact that it is surpassingly excellent is likely a result of all those qualities. There's something to be said for new music made old school!

Brooklyn Rider - Healing Modes This high-concept album interleaves the five movements of Beethoven's String Quartet No. 15 with five new pieces commissioned by Brooklyn Rider from some of today's most notable composers. While Beethoven's 250th anniversary was obviously an impetus for putting the album together, along with the world's desperate need for healing, there's no way the group could have predicted just how much healing when they commissioned these works a few years ago. I'm also fairly certain the group was not expecting Beethoven to become a flashpoint in the ongoing quest for social justice in classical music. While celebrating his "genius and humanity," as violist Johnny Gandelsman puts it, is a valid point in every year, whether the concept ultimately works for you will depend on your patience for listening to Beethoven. For me, I'm just not in the mood - and not for ideological reasons but for musical ones. I have shelves of the stuff, after all, and it just felt too familiar, even in their lapidary performance. So after a couple of listens, I teased out my own playlist of just the new works and...WOW. This is some of the best string quartet music of recent years. 

Matana Roberts' borderlands... opens the album in cinematic fashion, with indistinct voices, "Psycho" jabs, intricate and angry pizzicato, and the occasional moment of calm. By the time the players started spitting out "We hold these truths! To be..Self Evident!" I was almost on my feet. Reena Esmail's Zeher (Poison) seamlessly combines the sinuous melodies of Indian classical music with brusque chording for a bracing and beautiful eight minutes. I was reminded of her lovely piece on Nicholas Phillips' Shift and once again have a whetted appetite for more. The third new piece on Healing Modes is Gabriela Lena Frank's Kanto Kechua #2 and, based on this commanding and incantatory work, she is someone about whom I need to know more - and here's the perfect place to do just that. 

Then we get i am my own achilles heel, a mesmerizing 12-minute piece from Du Yun, which maps out a wide dynamic range, from airy whispers and pensive melodies to gnarly tangles of sound. She can do no wrong. The final new piece is by Caroline Shaw, the tuneful, Americana-infused Schisma, ending the album on a perfect note of hopefulness, although in no ways uncomplicated. By all means, follow the program and listen to Healing Modes as programmed by Brooklyn Rider. But if that's not hitting the spot, find your way to these wondrous new works through other means. 

Another hint of the depth of talent in Brooklyn Rider is violist Nicolas Cords' new album, Touch Harmonious, which mixes new works by Anna Clyne, Dmitri Yanov Yanovski, and Dana Lyn with older pieces by Britten, Handel, Bach, and other, all played with the same burnished tone and emotional engagement he displayed on Recursion, his solo debut from 2013. Gandelsman also has a new album, following up his complete recording of Bach's Solo Partitas, this time assaying the master's Complete Cello Suites transcribed for violin, including the first-ever recording of the 6th suite on a 5-string violin. It's a fleet-fingered take, emphasizing the Baroque dance rhythms embedded in each movement. Gandelsman's technique is flawless yet imbued with personality, making you hear these oft-played works anew. Now, if I could just get cellist Michael Nicolas to give me a sequel to Transitions, my life would be complete...for a little while, anyway!

Chris P. Thompson - True Stories & Rational Numbers Though inspired by the fearsomely complex player-piano works of Conlon Nancarrow and some deep thoughts about just intonation and Hermann von Helmholtz’s book On the Sensations of Tone, these nine piano pieced gleam with off-kilter charm, like a futuristic blend of Aphex Twin, Roger Eno and Erik Satie. Put it on and the sparkle will fill your room, like mirrored mobiles spinning around themselves, as you hear the piano in a whole new way.

You may also enjoy:
Record Roundup: Strings And Things
The Inspired Viola Of Melia Watras
Jace Clayton's Call To Conversation

Best Of The Rest Of 13

Music serves many purposes in our lives, which is why we welcome so much of it. The records in the top 20 are like complex single malt Scotches: you can return to them over and over again for new and deepening experiences. But sometimes you want a glass of Johnny Walker Black that is going to reliably satisfy and heighten your day without making too many demands. That's not to say that the albums and songs listed below are easy listening or without depth - they're all damned good, some featuring artists at the top of their game.

Coulda Been A Contender Had I another week or two to spend with the sheer delight of Any Port In A Storm by Scott & Charlene's Wedding it might have edged its way onto my top 20. Driving, melodic songs from Craig Dermody, a transplanted Aussie who tells us he "hasn't done much changing in what I love since 1993," and who in Fakin' NYC has come up with the second great Big Apple anthem of the year. Pusha T's My Name Is My Name was nearly the great album I knew he had in him. His vision that commercial hip hop can be good hip hop was inspiring and the variety and passion of his flow was simply staggering. Maybe if skeevy Chris Brown hadn't crashed the party there would be no hesitation. Arctic Monkeys seemed to finally crack America with their fifth album AM. While I'm not sure that should have ever been their goal, there are a lot of terrific songs on AM, along with an even beefier presence for one of the best rhythm sections on the current scene.

Take It To The Stage Seeing and hearing Atoms For Peace kill on stage at Barclays Center made me realize what I was missing from the quite fantastic Amok: Dynamics. The jam-then-cut-and-paste process of making the record took some of the air and interplay out of the ensemble. It's a great record but Thom Yorke & co. took to a whole other level in the live setting. The same could sort of be said for Wayne Shorter's titanic Without A Net, which was a live album but made up of selected performances rather than a single concert. I understand the curatorial impulse - and every performance is incredible - but having heard an unofficial recording of a show in Marseilles taped earlier this year, I found it easier to lose myself in the ebbs and flows of his extraordinary band. Also, Shorter plays only a little tenor sax on Without A Net and I found myself looking for a break from the high register of the soprano.

Don't Stop The Dance A lot of people seem satisfied to take the floor to pale imitations of past glories like Get Lucky or Blurred Lines but I require an actual groove to get me moving. Luscious Jackson's Magic Hour, their first album in 14 years, was a master class in the fun and the funky. A little push to the songwriting would have found them back at the peak of Fever In Fever Out, but I know what I'll be playing at the New Year's party. I'll probably also be spinning Disclosure's When A Fire Starts To Burn - no matter that the rest of Settle was at a slightly lower temperature.

Getting Better All The Time Over a decade into their career, 65daysofstatic returned from a three year hiatus with their strongest album yet, Wild Light. Choppy electronics, soaring guitars, epic compositions - it was the full package of what instrumental rock can be in 2013 and took its place next to Pell Mell's Interstate and Trans Am's Surrender To The Night among my favorites in the genre. Yes, that was me who added 65daysofstatic to the list of instrumental bands on Wikipedia! I've never been able to muster much enthusiasm for Midlake, despite the reams of rock journo ink spilled on them, but it seems that all they needed to do was lose their lead singer. The reconfigured sextet returned with Antiphon, a lovely and involving album that may presage future greatness. Then what will all those music critics say?

They've Been Careering Iron & Wine's Ghost On Ghost, Amor De Dias's The House At Sea, and Juana Molina's Wed 21 were all fine albums that I returned to often but that somehow stayed in the realm of the expected, even in their little innovations on trademark sounds. I wouldn't go so far as to say that they were for fans only, but I would hope that new listeners are led back to earlier, more powerful works. Edwyn Collins also exists in this realm and his punchy Understated is another reason I'm glad he survived two(!) cerebral hemorrhages to make more of his witty and heartfelt music.

Cool And Composed The vaguely named (and defined) area of New Music spun off a few gems that I spotlit over the course of 2013. Nicholas Cords, released his debut album Recursions, a beautifully wide-ranging solo viola album, while his regular gig, string quartet Brooklyn Rider, put out another strong statement with the Gypsy-inflected A Walking Fire. Another Nicholas, Nicholas Vines served up Torrid Nature Scenes, a welcome sampling of his sometimes raucous and always complex and accomplished music. Committed performances make the case that Vines is one of the most exciting of contemporary composers. The American Contemporary Music Ensemble performed something of a public service by bringing the early 60's work of NYC avant gardist Joseph Byrd to light - fascinating and fun stuff. Density, by Claire Chase, contemporary flutist extraordinaire, was a sometimes challenging survey of cutting edge music for her instrument, including the forever fabulous Density 21.5 by Edgar Varese.

Words And Music Benjamin Britten's 100th birthday led to a flood of catalog releases and new recordings. Sublime tenor Ian Bostridge put out one of the best of the latter, a collection of songs including the infrequently performed Songs From The Chinese. If you're unfamiliar with Britten, start to get acquainted with one of the greats here. Simone Dinnerstein, who made quite a splash with her self-released Bach recordings a few years ago, made her first foray into the dreaded crossover space with Night, an aptly-named collaboration with singer-songwriter Tift Merritt. Beats the heck out of Norah Jones.

Single & EP's Supposedly we live in a shuffle-based world now, with albums having less and less prominence. Why, then, is it so much work to get great singles and EP's noticed? I'll keep trying! Breton gave a hint of the larger canvas of their second album, due early next year, with the four song Force Of Habit, featuring the bouncy (for them) Envy and the doomy Got Well Soon plus two non-LP songs. Holly Miranda also set the stage for her sophomore release with the magnificent Desert Call/Everlasting single. I really hope 2014 is her year - been a long time coming. FKA Twigs (yes, formerly known as Twigs) collaborated with producer Arca for EP2 and the results were highly intriguing. Arca himself, aside from working on Yeezus, dropped a 26 minute mix of dazzling sounds, called &&&&&. The title hints that there's more to come from him, which will be more than welcome. Divine Fits kept their pot of brittle pop boiling with Chained To Love and Ain't That The Way, although I've heard rumors that Britt Daniel may be reviving Spoon next year. Finally, Matthew E. White re-released last year's brilliant Big Inner with five new songs - genteel and sly, funky and folky, the way only he can do. If you don't already have it, it's way past time to invest in a major talent.

Bandcamp Follower There's a wealth of free listening and downloads on Bandcamp. Two of my discoveries from 2013 are Historian and Journalism (you can make the joke about unused graduate degrees). The first makes hazy bedroom electro-psych-pop and the second comes up with catchy guitar rock that doesn't sound cheesy. When you're tired of the usual suspects, head over to Bandcamp and find something to tell your friends about.

Best of The Rest of 2013 from Murgatroyd on 8tracks Radio.

I'm saving the spectacular reissues of the year for next time so we can all catch our breath. See you in 2014!

Excursions & Recursions: Nicholas Cords

You are standing between two mirrors. You turn to face one and are confronted with infinitely repeating reflections of yourself: this is one kind of recursion. Another type is when there is a picture on the cover a book showing someone holding a book, which has a picture of the same person holding the same book, and on and on, ad infinitum. In math and technology recursions are also related to fractals, in which the part is identical to the whole at any scale. Recursions is also the name of the debut solo album by violist Nicholas Cords.

That's a lot of mental baggage to put into the title of a record. Perhaps it is Cords's way of nudging his listeners to the realization that the music within is, despite spanning centuries and continents, self-similar. His selections certainly make full use of the viola's dark-hued tones and rich timbre. The music is emotional, sometimes almost anguished, and often filled with broad strokes rather than virtuosic details - although the playing is flawless, as you would expect from a member of both groundbreaking string quartet Brooklyn Rider and Yo Yo Ma's globe trotting Silk Road Ensemble. Recursive though it may be, there is nothing repetitive about this album.

The opening track, Heinrich Biber's Passacaglia, has a haunting, almost medieval air, despite being composed in 1676, and leads perfectly into Port Na BPucai (the music of the fairies), a traditional Irish theme arranged by Cords. In barely 14 minutes we have traveled from Baroque Salzburg to a timeless Irish past, finding commonality of feeling between the two. The Biber piece is part of a larger work, the Rosary Sonatas, which details the life of Mary in 15 settings but if there is any irony in setting it beside "fairy music," you won't find it here.

British composer Edmund Rubbra's Meditations on a Byzantine Hymn 'O Quando E Cruces' from 1964 follows, and another theme emerges, that of translations and transcriptions. The Biber work, after all was originally written for violin and the Irish tune is often played on the uilleann pipes. Like Biber, Rubbra draws on the monophony of medievalism before moving into some decidedly un-hymn like dance rhythms, sometimes plucked or strummed in an almost off-kilter fashion. This is no intellectual exercise, however - there is a mood of exploration that carries you through.

Armenian folk tunes are the basis for Alan Hovhaness's Chahagir (1945), one of only two American works on the album. There is no cheap exoticism contained in the piece; rather it is a passionate essay that fully respects the composer's Armenian roots. Cords's playing is fiery, but always in control.

The next piece, Five Migrations, composed by Cords's himself, totals just over seven minutes yet is the heart of the collection, drawing together all the themes and variations contained within. An overview:

1. Timegate (:51) Multitracking allows Cords to play a spacy melody over his own ostinato.
2. Stilted Reverie (:48) Combines scrapes, drones and an eastern-tinged tune.
3. Anachronism (2:07) A subtle glitchy undertone supports a song of shadowed sunshine.
4. Labyrinth (:56) Fractured plucking and strumming adds up to a neat little machine of sound.
5. Landing (2:21) The most obviously recursive work here, this is like a folk song in the form of a round and is reminiscent of Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

Five Migrations is an exciting and detailed piece, full of intriguing possibilities. The last section segues naturally into Stravinsky's brief Elegie (1944), which is somber and reflective, providing an apt antechamber for the closing piece, Paul Hindemith's Sonata for solo viola, Op 11, #5 from 1923. Astringent, sometimes almost angry, Hindemith's music here seems to be pointing out something that is glaringly obvious to him but unseen by the rest of us. There is some very dense writing in the sonata, with the occasional flashy run, and Cords dispatches the many challenges with bite and flair. This is a fairly early work by Hindemith, composed before he was 30, but Cords finds a through-line and a maturity of conception that other recordings seem to have missed. It's not an immediately welcoming composition, but repeated listening reveals much to engage with.

Hindemith's final movement is called In Form und Zeitmass einer Passacaglia, which loosly translates as "in the form and correct timing of a passacaglia." Not only is this yet another instance of a composer drawing on and translating from another time and place, it also snaps us right back to where we started, with that earlier Germanic passacaglia.

The word "passacaglia" derives from Spanish words meaning "to walk the street," but what Nicholas Cords has given us on Recursions is no mere stroll but a full-on excursion through times, time, and places. Book your ticket.

Recursions is released March 12, 2013 on In A Circle Records. Catch Nicholas Cords and Brooklyn Rider in a free concert on May 5th.