Focus On: Contemporary Classical

I often get the question, “How do you keep up with new music?” My answer is usually a detailed description of the various playlists I maintain, the different newsletters, websites, Facebook pages and magazines I monitor, the emails I get from publicists and labels, the Friend Feed on Spotify, etc. But the real answer should be brief: Barely. So, with the year-end looming, here’s a quick rundown of some recent albums and an extraordinary concert in the realm of contemporary classical. I've also included information on three concerts I strongly recommend finding time to attend.

Dan Lippel - "...through which the past shines...": Works by Nils Vigeland and Reiko Füting A truism in the nonprofit world is that "people give to people," meaning that donors are more likely to support an organization when they are asked personally, usually by someone to whom they have a connection. But people also listen to people and I think one of the reasons it's taken me so long to write about this excellent album is that it has a bit of an identity crisis. WHO will we be hearing from and WHAT will they be playing? The title is a mouthful, for one thing. If I were marketing the album, I might have titled it Recent Guitar Masterpieces (admittedly cheesy!) so curious listeners might have at least some idea of the wonders that lie within. I also would have reserved the largest font on the cover for the name Dan Lippel, for it is his virtuosic and deeply musical guitar playing that defines the experience of listening to the album. Fortunately, you have me to explain it all to you.

What we have here are seven pieces, five of them world-premiere recordings, of exquisite solo and chamber music focusing on the acoustic guitar. If you are a fan of the instrument, you need read no more than that before laying cold hard cash down for this record. Four of the pieces are by Nils Vigeland, an American composer, performer and teacher who seems to have a true sensitivity for the guitar. His La Folia Variants from 1996 was recorded over a decade ago by Lippel and included on his album Resonances. Its three lovely, Renaissance-inspired movements should be standard practice at guitar recitals worldwide. Vigeland's Two Variations, from 1990, bookends the album, instilling a sense of absolute peace as you begin and end your journey. The title track, from 2017 and the most recent work here, is also the longest. On it, Lippel is joined by Vigeland on piano and John Popham, of Either/Or and Longleash, on cello, and its sparkling interactions make a stunning case for these forces working together. The final work by Vigeland on the album is Quodlibet from 2011, three movements for guitar and cello based on The Beatles' Hey Jude and Good Day Sunshine, which avoids feeling like a pastiche thanks to the composer's structural skills and depth of invention.

Reiko Füting is a German-born composer and educator who studied around the world, including with Vigeland. His wand-uhr: infinite shadows (2013/16) takes inspiration from a poem by Joseph von Eichendorff but my ears picked out sonorities and techniques that reminded me of Davy Graham's jazz-inspired folk guitar solos. It's even easy to imagine Jimmy Page interpolating some of this into his Black Mountain Side, were he to grace a stage with his presence ever again. Füting's Red Wall (2006), uses dissonance and a broad dynamic range in tribute to the natural beauty of The Alps. Füting's arrangement of the traditional Jewish song Hine ma Tov is also included, using an almost Cubist approach to deconstruct the familiar melody. A digital-only bonus track contains three further variations by Vigeland, a young Icelandic composer named Halidór Smárason, and Lippel himself, a fine dessert after the sonic feast of the album proper. Along with Duo Noire's Night Triptych, this is the best classical guitar album of 2018. Maybe that should have been the title!

Nordic Affect - He(a)r My love for this Icelandic chamber ensemble is well documented (here and here, for starters!) so it pains me slightly to have even a minor quibble about their new album. But the fact is that, no matter how many times I tried, I could not accommodate the title piece by Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir. Made up of spoken word soundscapes, its seven parts interspersed throughout the album, I found it only interrupted the mood rather than added to it. So I made a playlist with the other six works, an easy fix that revealed yet another classic album from the quartet.

Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir bookends my version of the album with Spirals and Loom, the latter of which I saw performed live last year with a beautiful abstract video component by Dodda Maggy. Even without the visuals, it is a meditative piece, its long, interweaving notes inviting your breathing to...slow...down. Spirals is a wonderfully sleek and brooding affair that grows lusher as it continues, with electronic elements seemingly designed to unsettle. The way Mirjam Tally's Warm life at the foot of the iceberg opens with a hammered chord on Gudrún Ôskarsdóttir's harpsichord will certainly give you a start and leads to what feels like a competition for sonic resources among the three strings and the keyboard - thrilling.

All the excitement is the perfect introduction for two pieces by the great Anna Thorvaldsdottir, one of the most significant composers of our time. Reflections (2016) conjures up some of the loneliness of the buzzsaw whine of a small aircraft flying over a forest and gradually accumulates drama, pulling you surely along its narrative thread. Impressions was written for Ôskarsdóttir and works both as an haunting exploration of light and shade and showcase for how her technique pushes the harpsichord into new areas. Finally we have Point of Departure by Hildur Guônadóttir, Nordic Affect's cellist, another piece they played in concert. This grave and hymnal work has the musicians singing long notes to accompany their instruments, a reminder of both music's origins in the human body and the symbiotic relationship between artists and their tools of expression.

By all means listen first to He(a)r as Nordic Affect intended; it's possible that you will find the dialogues an enhancement. There's no doubt that some of the thoughts, including quotes from the composer, Roni Horn, Pauline Oliveros and others, are fascinating: "Each totemic ancestor, while traveling through the country, was thought to have scattered a trail of words and musical notes along the lines of his footprints." But if you feel the way I do, don't turn away from the rest of the album, which is truly exquisite.

Du Yun's Stories

Any concert that begins with flute superstar Claire Chase barely visible and summoning the spirits with a bass flute and her voice is already a success. And what followed at Du Yun’s Composer Portrait (with the International Contemporary Ensemble) at the Miller Theater more than lived up to that auspicious start. Chase was playing the finale from An Empty Garlic (2014), an incantatory piece exploring bereavement with compassion and depth (see the complete premiere here), but she was not alone on stage. In a stunning reinvention of the retrospective concert, all 12 players for the first five pieces were placed just so on the darkened stage, ready to perform their piece at their own individual spots, what Du Yun called LEGOs. 

The richly immersive lighting by Nicholas Houfek only increased the sense of seamlessness as the pieces went by with no applause in between. The second LEGO was occupied by Rebekah Heller (bassoon) and Ryan Muncy (saxophones) playing a mashup of Ixtab, 10 PM (2013) and Dinosaur Scar (1999), the pieces combining to seem even more like a free jazz freakout than they do when played on their own. Heller, whose technique is jaw-dropping, had some electronics going as well and vocalized a little along with her instrument. Her and Muncy's grasp of extended techniques made all the clicking and breathy sounds an organic part of their instruments.  

Just as my mind was about to lose the thread, David Bowlin picked it up, playing the ancient-to-modern Under a tree, an udātta (2016) on his violin. It seemed as if the bending, keening notes were coming directly from his soul. Du Yun, whose soul created it, was slowly revealed to be sitting on her own LEGO, in a posture of careful listening. When Bowlin finished, the audience remained in stunned silence as Du Yun stood, her fantastic costume now fully visible, and began Zinc Oxide (2010), a duo with cellist Katinka Kleijn. This had the two of them reciting a brief surreal narrative that sounded like a memoir or a nightmare while ramping up the intensity with Kleijn's cello and Du Yun's "tree trunk," what looked like a small log with strings and a guitar pickup that she played with a bow. 

Between the poses she struck and the delectable distortions of the sounds she made it occurred to me that Du Yun is a post-punk rebel masquerading as Pulitzer-Prize-winning classical composer. That impression wasn't dissipated in the least by the following performance of Air Glow (2006/2018), the newest piece on Du Yun's instant classic Dinosaur Scar, with the five brass players stepping up to their LEGOs from their seats, and Dan Lippel (yes, him again!) sitting alongside them to play the moody guitar and bass parts. It was no less impressive than it is on the record. When the first half was over all I could think was: this show should go on the road!

After a brief intermission, we were treated to a warm and wise discussion between Du Yun and Heller, almost like eavesdropping on old friends, and two pieces for larger ensembles presented in a more conventional, if completely excellent, fashion. Vicissitudes No. 1 (2002) almost felt like  a series of simultaneous solos, with Joshua Rubin seeming to levitate as he unfurled his clarinet part and percussionist Nathan Davis throwing down like John Bonham with head-nodding authority. Then Lippel entered stage right and burned the place down with the steel string guitar solo featured on Dinosaur Scar. He really can do it all! Impeccable Quake (2014) closed the show with the entire ensemble giving it everything they had. I would have put Lippel's guitar higher in the mix so that it cut through the way it does on Dinosaur Scar, but it was still a great performance. Like the entire evening it served to solidify Du Yun's strengths and forced the imagination to consider all the places she can go from here.

Choral Cascade: I can't remember a year when we've had such an embarrassment of vocal riches as we've had in 2018. Impermanence, from Boston's all-female Lorelei Ensemble, spans 800 years of music, including the Codex Calixtinus from the 12th Century and Peter Gilbert's Tsukimi from 2013. In between we have some 15th Century music by DuFay and from the anonymous Turin Codex - three of those pieces are recorded here for the first time - and excerpts from Toru Takemitsu's Windhorse from the 60's. The end result is sublime, as is the recording from Sono Luminus. Notus, a 40-year-old student ensemble from Bloomington, IL, has finally released its first album, Of Radiance And Refraction. Well worth the wait, it is a fascinating assemblage of five world premiere choral works by composers with whom I was completely unfamiliar, including Dominic Diorio, whose Stravinsky Refracted (2015) riffs on Amy Lowell's poem about Stravinsky's Trois pièces pour quatuor á cordes in phantasmagoric fashion. The Zora String Quartet is here to play the original string quartet piece so you know to what Lowell was responding - a wise choice. Diorio also leads Notus and should be commended for bringing polish and passion to the student performances. All the works are of more than passing interest, with John Gibson's In Flight (2015) for chorus and electronics especially substantial. Finally, we have Zealot Canticles by The Crossing, which includes only the title piece by Lansing McLoskey - another name new to me - which is subtitled "An oratorio for tolerance." Written for clarinet, string quartet, and 24-voice choir, the libretto is drawn from 12 Canticles for Zealots, which uses poetry to investigate the minds of fanatics, and other writings by Nobel-Prize-winning Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka. It's dark stuff, but McLoskey's melodic expansiveness and the always extraordinary work of The Crossing, led by Donald Nally, make for a highly absorbing listen.

Chamber Catch-Up: I hesitate to call Peter Garland's The Landscape Scrolls "chamber music," but in this context it will have to do. It could also be filed under "ambient" or "new age" but it doesn't quite fit there either. The album-length work, played to a fare-thee-well by percussionist John Lane, who also commissioned the work, takes us through the cycle of a day by exploring the possibilities of instrumental groupings that are "timbrally monochromatic." My favorite is Part 3: After Dark, which is played on three triangles and creates extraordinary resonances. Sample the piece in this artful trailer for the album. Ken Thomson, the composer and reed player for Bang On A Can and other groups, gave us a modern classic in Restless for cello and piano in 2016. This year, we have something entirely different in Sextet, written for a small ensemble that looks a hell of a lot like a jazz band. The music within is fully composed, however, and harks back to some of the west coast sounds of Shorty Rogers, Jimmy Giuffre, etc. The album begins with a Ligeti piece which harmonically informs the rest of the album the way Thelonious Monk took off from the spiritual Abide With Me on his classic album Monk's Music. This is bright, busy and brainy stuff, played with intensity and swing, and you can't help but be carried along by the sound of one of our most brilliant musical minds following his muse. If you find yourself smiling too broadly after Thomson's cacophony has died down, I give you Michael Hersch's Images From A Closed Ward, played with phenomenal concentration by the FLUX Quartet. Bleak, slow, inexorable and breathtaking, this hour-long piece is a major new contribution to the string quartet repertoire and should put Hersch firmly on your radar.

Upcoming Concerts: 
Tuesday, November 20th, 6:00 PM - Isabel Lepanto Gleicher: Pop Up Concert, in which the flutist will perform a world premiere by Barry Sharp, music by 12th Century mystic Hildegard von Bingen, and everything in between (Miller Theater, 2960 Broadway at 116th St., NYC) Free

Friday, November 30th, 8:00 PM - Talea Ensemble: Soper + Adamcyk, featuring Kate Soper's Voices from the Killing Jar (2012), sung by Lucy Dhegrae, and a world premiere from David Adamcyk (America's Society, 680 Park Ave. at 68th St., NYC) Free with RSVP

Saturday, December 1st, 8:00 PM - Hotel Elefant: Letters That You Will Not Get, featuring a world premiere by Kirsten Volness and special guests Opera Cowgirls (Church of the Intercession, 550 W 155th St., NYC) $20 at the door

Full disclosure: I'm on the board of both Talea Ensemble and Hotel Elefant, but I would be ride-or-die for both groups either way!

Tracks from the albums mentioned above and so many more from this amazing year can be found in this playlist. As always, tell me what's grabbing YOU. Also, if you like the anthology format of this post, let me know.

You may also enjoy:
Three Portraits: Cheung-Trapani-Du Yun
Record Roundup: Avant Chamber And Orchestral
Record Roundup: Electro-Acoustic Explorations
Best Of 2017: Classical
Record Roundup: On The Cutting Edge
A Nordic Night At National Sawdust
Collapsing Into Nordic Affect's Raindamage
Best Of 2016: Classical
Record Roundup: Composed, Commemorated And Beyond
Record Roundup: Classical Composure

Best Of 2017: The Top 25

I probably say a variation of this every year, but my Top 25 records are not the only “bests” of the year - you’ll find plenty more on the genre-specific lists that follow over the coming weeks - but these are the ones that got me THROUGH or enhanced my days, becoming the soundtrack of my life. If you’ve been following along, you’ll notice that I expanded my list to 25 from 20 this year (it used to be 10!). This is due both to the nearly overwhelming amount of great music that came out this year and to the need to more accurately reflect the breadth of my listening. Who knows what next year will bring?

1. The Clientele - Music For The Age Of Miracles In the absence of actual miracles, this surprising return to form made for a delightful substitute.

2. The Courtneys - II That there is profundity in extreme minimalism was never clearer than on this sleek sophomore album. There was also no better road-trip record, which I needed for year two of college tours. 

3. Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up In ancient times, poetry and music were deeply integrated disciplines. Robin Pecknold, the singer, songwriter, and heart of Fleet Foxes, is that kind of musician and poet and words and sounds are intertwined on this third album to an even further degree than on their first two. Considering that Crack-Up was made after an hiatus of several years, during which time Pecknold attended Columbia University, it’s not surprising that it is also their most literary album. The lyrics are deeply allusive (even the title is a nod to F. Scott Fitzgerald) but still manage to come from a very personal place. Third Of May/Odaigahara, the first single, is a perfect example, with Pecknold’s fear and sadness over strains in his friendship with bandmate Skyler Sjelset transmuted into something elevated and universal. 

“Can I be light and free?/If I lead you through the fury will you call to me?/And is all that I might owe you carved on ivory?” Pecknold sings over soaring stings and guitars, after a hushed moment of introspection that uses a different sound to represent an older perspective on the white-hot emotions surrounding a breach in the relationship. In his wonderful annotations of the lyrics on Genius he translates that last line as “Are our obligations to one another as outmoded and in-the-past as fuckin' scrimshaw bro,” which gives an idea of the alchemy of his writing.

The slash in the title of the song was also a hint of its suite-like structure, which is something they employ on several songs, stretching their compositional muscles towards realms of prog-folk or even art song, making for a richly involving listen that retains its mystery over time. It also makes the shorter, more direct songs like If You Need To, Keep Time On Me even more stunning, as they stand out from the thickets of changes in tempo and timbre. 

If I was going to find any nits to pick with Pecknold & co., it might be to question the choice of including a brief sample of a Mulatu Astatke track at the end of On Any Other Ocean (January- June) which just doesn’t fit and wrenches you out of the enveloping world of Crack-Up. On the double-vinyl version, it hangs off the end of side three quite awkwardly. I won’t belabor the point as it is such a short excerpt, but they should feel no need to establish hipster-cred by telling us they’re fans of Ethiopian jazz - that’s what Spotify playlists are for! I could also wonder why they muted some of their power, which can be explosive in concert, leading to a less dynamic experience than what might have been. I was lucky enough to see them twice this year (once in the tiny confines of Electric Lady Studios) and feel that massed blast in person. Aside from those minor quibbles, this was a glorious return. Long may they reign. 

4. Kendrick Lamar - DAMN. No one in hip hop - or anywhere else, for that matter - limns our present moment the way he does. Shame about that album cover, though!

5. Father John Misty - Pure Comedy The good father and production partner Jonathan Wilson turn in their most ambitious epic yet on this deceptively futuristic masterpiece. 

6. Nordic Affect - Raindamage Perhaps Björk wouldn’t find herself in such a cul de sac if she went home and worked with these Icelandic geniuses of texture, precision and thorny wildness. But guess what? They’re doing more than fine on their own. 

7. Goldfrapp - Silver Eye Call it a back to basics album if you like, but there’s nothing basic about their addictive glam-electro beats and dubbed out ambient tone poems - and no one does it better. 

8. Sampha - Process  Long a secret weapon for many hip hop and R&B stars, this quadruple-threat (singer, songwriter, musician and producer) finally steps out on his own, delivering a stunningly versatile collection of songs that show off a uniquely muscular vulnerability. 

9. Jenny O. - Peace And Information A songwriter in the classic mode, Jenny’s sophomore album was as immediate as a status update and as solid as the vintage Detroit steel she likes to drive. Producer Jonathan Wilson helped her push into new territory, with an extra edge here or a Latin groove there, and her singing was better than ever. 

10. Noveller - A Pink Sunset For No One Sarah Lipstate does things with multiple layers of electric guitars that Les Paul never would’ve imagined. On her latest album she also buckled down on song structure, building tension and dynamics into every track. She’s been doing this for a long time and this is a perfect entry point into her magical world. 

11. Del Sol String Quartet - Terry Riley: Dark Queen Mantra The title piece, written by Riley for string quartet and his son Gyan’s guitar, is a new highlight in the already consequential career of a true American original. The accompanying works do nothing to break the spell. 

12. Nev Cottee - Broken Flowers Every note counts on this epic of badass enervation (trust me) led by Cottee’s sepulchral croon. It’s an enveloping record, like a warm but slightly scratchy blanket, and inspiring in Cottee’s commitment to his singular vision of starlit folk-rock. 

13. Boogarins - Desvio Onirico (Live 2016) and Lá Vem A Morte These boys from Brazil have been deepening their sound both on stage and in the studio and both sides are represented in their 2017 releases. The live album features four exploratory cuts, three from their first two albums and one improvised on the spot - it’s a trip and a half as they refuse to play it safe in front of ecstatic crowds. Lá Vem is a psychedelic tapestry, with songs blending into instrumental fragments and back again, a journey of quite a different nature than the live jams, but a journey nonetheless. 

14. Elsa Hewitt - Cameras From Mars This is really a stand-in for all three excellent albums Hewitt released this year, spanning electro-pop, ambient and collage-like sounds. While she’s new on the electronic scene, she has been honing her craft as a songwriter and producer for nearly a decade. Give it a try and if you like what you hear, support her Pledge campaign to get downloads, vinyl and cassettes of her handcrafted sonics. Maybe if we show her enough love from the States, she'll travel from England to play in New York!

15. Nadia Reid - Preservation This New Zealand singer-songwriter might as well have called her gorgeous sophomore effort “Self-Preservation,” as she navigates life after a breakup with a spine steeled by nothing but her gift for indelible melodies and lyrics full of poetic leaps. The production is well-nigh perfect, pushing her folky songs into the indie-rock mystic. But it’s her songs and remarkable voice which are the stars here, as she proved at the start of her NYC debut show at Park Church Co-Op earlier this month. The way she walked up on stage without a word and, accompanied only by her guitar, just poured out her voice flawlessly was jaw-dropping. A house of worship instantly became an entirely appropriate place for her to work her magic. Preservation is a treasure you need in your collection.

16. Spoon - Hot Thoughts America’s longest living rock band continues to find ways to add new twists while still sounding utterly like themselves. While Britt Daniel’s gritty voice and gnarled guitar are at the forefront, everybody pulls their weight, especially beat-master Jim Eno who always makes sure the rhythms are up to the minute and intensely satisfying. 

17. Nicole Atkins - Goodnight Rhonda Lee In which the tough dame from south Jersey masters all types of American classicism, from soul to country and even disco. 

18. Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble - Return Greatness ensued when homecoming kings Adam Cuthbert, Matthew Finch and Daniel Rhode composed pieces for the avant-garde experts at their alma mater then brought the recordings back to the lab for this immersive collection of post-ambient, post-minimalist chamber music. 

19. Novella - Change Of State According to Spotify, the genre I listened to the most in 2017 was “Chamber Psych” and this elegant ensemble may be mostly responsible for that. Like The Courtneys, Novella tightened up their songwriting, focused their arrangements, and came up with an end-to-end classic. 

20. Michael Chapman - 50 This Brit-folk legend celebrated a half-century in music (and his 75th birthday) by heading into the studio with a posse of young American folk-rock virtuosos led by Steve Gunn and laying down new songs and remakes, resulting in a woody tapestry of hard-luck ballads and tall tales that was consistently gripping. His voice may be a dry husk of its former self but, boy, does he know how to sing. 

21. Hiss Golden Messenger - Hallelujah Anyhow While this might be a lighter-weight entry in M.C. Taylor’s catalog, goddamn if his richly textured Americana didn’t just feel good. And no record released this year was more appropriate for a midnight drive through Pennsylvania’s Allegheny tunnels - just one of the ways he kept me steady at the wheel. Hallelujah!

22. This Is The Kit - Moonshine Freeze Nearly a decade in, Kate Stables (who is TITK, along with whoever else she brings in) finally connects songs, sounds and singing in a way that goes beyond the merely interesting and becomes essential. So many songs on the album have the incantatory power of ancient tunes that it wouldn’t surprise me if she had found them buried in the woods near King Arthur’s grave. But it’s really all her, as she comes into her own with newfound confidence and mastery. You can practically see it happen in her wonderful Tiny Desk Concert and I hope to see it in person when she hits Rough Trade NYC on May 23rd, 2018. 

23. Warhaus - Warhaus For his second album as Warhaus, burgeoning Belgian icon Maarten Devoldere smooths our his approach slightly but the choruses are as catchy as ever, the sound world is still a unique blend of cabaret sleaze, noir jazz and Dylanesque snarl and the tang of unfiltered Gauloises hangs in the air. In short, atmospheric.

24. Novelty Daughter - Inertia There’s nothing inert about Faith Harding’s dense beats and next-level electronics, especially when her glorious voice takes off over the top. While her musical approach is elevated and complex, her lyrics are full of plain truths and relatable issues. Making music helps her deal - listening to Novelty Daughter does the same for me. 

25. Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band - Adiós Señor Pussycat The guitars jangle, the melodies are classic, and the sense of opportunity seized is palpable throughout this roaring comeback from one of England’s best kept secrets. No one saw this coming - even him, maybe - and it’s pure heartfelt sing-along joy. 

Listen to tracks from all of these albums in the playlist below, except for the live album by Boogarins (buy it on Bandcamp for $4.20 - get it?), and then follow through on the sounds that intrigue you. Let me know if I've helped you find something new!





Coming soon: The best of 2017's classical, hip hop, R&B, electronic, rock, folk, etc.!

You may also enjoy:
Best Of 2016: The Top 20
Best Of 2016: Hip Hop & R&B
Best Of 2016: Electronic
Best Of 2016: Classical
Best Of 2016: Rock, Folk, Etc.

Best Of 2017 (So Far)

While I call these types of posts "Best Of," you should always understand that "best" is a designation driven by my personal engagement with the records at hand. So, in actuality, these are my favorite records of the year (so far), the ones I have turned to repeatedly to limn hard days with light, amplify joyous times, to make me think and feel in new ways and old. That said, I do think there are qualities of these records that are objectively "great," so if there are any you haven't heard yet, I hope you'll give them a try.

It's too early to put things in numerical order, so I have arranged this in an approximation of how many times I've listened to each one.

Father John Misty - Pure Comedy I already covered some of my thoughts about this extraordinary work here, but I also want to point out despite tweaking himself as "the oldest living man in folk-rock," Josh Tillman is also one of the hardest working. While maintaining a tireless round of concert dates, interviews, TV appearances, etc., he has never stopped pushing himself artistically since dropping Fear Fun onto an unsuspecting universe five years ago. So, Pure Comedy finds him and his artistic foil, production savant Jonathan Wilson, expanding the canvas of sound with lusher arrangements and longer structures while still maintaining what might be called, sonically speaking, "brand integrity." This was precisely what was needed to support FJM's view of humanity from a thousand feet up, peering at us through polluted clouds with fear, anger, hope, and humor. And he has never sung better, his voice even more honeyed than it was on his last album. There were times in the performance and promotion cycle for his first two albums where I detected a hint of weariness with the FJM persona, but Pure Comedy proves there is no limit to the creativity and passion Tillman unleashed with its creation.

Nordic Affect - Raindamage THE Icelandic contemporary chamber music album - at least until their next one. The title track was composed by Valgeir Siguròsson, who released an album of his compositions called DISSONANCE, which is well worth checking out, as is Recurrence by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.

Kendrick Lamar - DAMN. On the heels of 2015's To Pimp A Butterfly and 2016's Untitled Unmastered, the Compton rapper finds new ways to devastate, provoke, and inspire. I attempted to plumb some of the depths of this multilayered creation here. It's very tough to imagine a better hip hop album coming out this year.

The Courtneys - II Guitars, bass, drums, and vocals configured into such glorious simplicity it becomes artful minimalism. Watch the speed limit when listening in your car.

Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up I will have more to say about this album at another time, but for now I will say that it more than lives up to the weight of my expectations. Robin Pecknold's songwriting more complex and literary than ever and the arrangements of the suite-like songs are astonishingly beautiful. There's also less reliance on five-part harmonies, with Pecknold letting it rip in his glorious tenor, expressing both strength and vulnerability with greater directness than on previous works. I also had the privilege of seeing them perform many of these songs in the intimate confines of the legendary Electric Lady studios for a show to be broadcast by WFUV and I can report that Pecknold and Co. have complete command of these proggy folk epics. I'm seeing them again on August 1st in Prospect Park. Tickets may still be available for the August 2nd show, so I recommend you get in on it - or find a date when they're in your town.

Goldfrapp - Silver Eye After some time in the wilderness, Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory are back at their best and it's oh so addictive.

Noveller - A Pink Sunset For No One Sarah Lipstate creates paintings in sound with her guitar, loop pedals, and a laptop - and they're gorgeous and emotionally resonant. So many subway rides were elevated with this, her ninth (or 11th? I've seen both figures) album, which shows off her gift for structure, possibly related to her work in film. I find myself thinking more about individual songs on Pink Sunset, rather than just letting the album go by in a luscious blur as I did with her last album, Fantastic Planet. Catch her live, if you can - watching her put everything together is a wonder.

Boogarins - Desvio Onírico (Live 2016) and Lá Vem a Morte The Brazilian band is progressing through their career like a rocket, shedding parts and picking up all sorts of interesting space debris on the way. Exhibit A is the live album that ruled my ski season, lending even more adventure to the slopes. Exhibit B is their new studio concoction, which is easily their most sophisticated recording to date. There is a collage-like feel to some of the songs, which was presaged by last year's single (included here), Elogio à Instituição do Cinismo. POLUÇÃO NOTURNA, for example, starts with a buzz and some bright guitar, which resolves into a sweet song with all kinds of bleeps and glitches accumulating around the guitar, which finally just stops, while the sounds continue and blend into the sketchy Lá Vem a Morte pt. 2, which includes fragments of the song. I'm eager to see how these new developments translate into their live sound and hope to make it to their free concert on July 8th, part of the Summer Thunder series.

Sampha - Process Composer, producer, singer, musician - Sampha Sisay can do it all. He's also worked with essentially every next-level hip hop and r&b artist in all those capacities, including Kanye West, Solange, Frank Ocean, and FKA Twigs - and those are just the ones I like. Process is his first full-length and reveals an old soul with all the old-fashioned strengths in his songwriting, piano playing, and deeply felt singing. His production talents serve each song perfectly, whether it's the spare (No One Knows Me) Like The Piano or the monster groove of Blood On Me - check out how the background vocals make the song levitate. I'm sure Process will only make demand for Sampha's assistance greater, but I hope we don't have to wait long for more of his own very personal music.

Nev Cottee - Broken Flowers I must have listened to this Manchester-based singer some time in the past, as he showed up in my Release Radar on Spotify - but I don't remember being blown away the way I am by this new album. The songs seem dipped in a Daniel Lanoisian (Lanois-esque?) stardust and many have draggy tempos that stretch the notion of a pulse to the breaking point. Cottee's voice can seem to dip into a tectonic frequency, but it's your soul that moves, not the earth. There's heartbreak, seething anger, hard-won wisdom and world-weariness, all leavened by a sense of humor and melodic invention. The instrumentation can be skeletal, with Plastic Ono Band drums and one-note keyboard lines, but there are also delicious moments like the dueling guitar and strings on Be On Your Way or the tremolo bar workout on Nobody's Fool, which is part Duane Eddy and part Ennio Morricone. The centerpiece of the album is epic track Tired of Love, which spins off into the stratosphere over eight glorious minutes of harpsichord arpeggios, guitar twangs, and strings.

Novella - Change Of State This British band keeps getting better at their sleek psych, using Krautrock rhythms to drive their songs straight to your cortex.

Prodigy - Hegelian Dialectic (The Book of Revelation) This album, now the last from the legendary Mobb Deep rapper, who died in June, has been a slow burn for me, but the overall mood of dark elegance eventually took hold. No other genre moves as fast as hip hop, which means that late-career albums like this have a limited impact on the wider culture. Maybe that's why some of Prodigy's message seems to be directed at himself, like this opening verse from Tyranny: "My confidence is up, I believe with all my soul/I can do anything that I put my heart into/I spend all my time focused in the lab/coming up with these songs/mastering my craft." But the chorus takes a political turn: "Race don't matter/Your faith don't matter/The enemy is government tyranny/All that other shit don't matter." This confirmed by the sampled voice at the end: "This time, vote like your life depended on it." The album seems to see-saw between public and personal concerns, which may be part of the reason behind the title, which refers to the idea that opposing ideas can only be resolved by acknowledging their common strengths in a synthesis. There's a mournful quality, even when the lyrics get tough. Was Prodigy worried about his own future, or that of his people, or our country? The likely answer is all three, and we might have learned more with the next two albums in a planned trilogy. While Hegelian Dialectic doesn't hit as many highs as Albert Einstein, it is a fitting capstone to the career of one of the greatest ever to rock the mic.

Elsa Hewitt - Cameras From Mars By seasoning her compulsively listenable bedroom electro-pop with hints of dub and modern R&B, Hewitt enriches the sound immeasurably. But it's still an intimate, sometimes delicate, concoction of spare beats, dusky melodies and soulful singing. Cameras From Mars is not the full story, however, as the ambitious Hewitt has just announced the next album, Dum Spiro Spero, second in a projected 2017 trilogy. She promises everything will make more sense when all three albums are out, but nothing feels unfinished on this delightful debut.

Spoon - Hot Thoughts For sheer production creativity alone, this album would be notable for the way it fully modernizes rock by bringing in elements of electronic music and hip hop. The core of the sound is, as ever, Britt Daniel's gritty, flexible voice, and his slashing guitar, which, along with Jim Eno's drums, makes Spoon stay Spoon while moving further outward.

Jonwayne - Rap Album Two The career of this California-based rapper and producer has had more ups and downs than I could have expected when I reviewed his first album in Mass Appeal, including a health scare that had us all worried. But he clawed his way back, fighting his own demons ("I spent the last two years fucking up big dreams," he admits in These Words Are Everything), and arriving at a richer place musically and lyrically. That struggle is the subject of some of the songs, the perspective of deeply intelligent mind subject to chronic loneliness and gifted with the curse of wisdom beyond his years. He also wrestles with the duality of being a lover of hip hop but not wanting to give in to the stereotypical subject matter expected in the genre. This is sarcastically explored in The Single, in which he tries and fails three times to record a tough talking rhyme in the hope of getting airplay. Then there are the demands of the success he has had, detailed LIVE From The Fuck You, which recreates that awkward moment when someone insults you ("But, um, she says you rap and I'm not really seeing it dog,") and then wants you to perform for their girlfriend ("I mean it's her birthday, dog. I'm just saying"). Nick Colletti as the "fan" makes this scene all too real. But, in the end, it's Jonwayne's sheer creativity and his big heart that helped him prevail, and I'm glad he's back. Since his "words are everything/maybe they're my only thing," I'll let him play this out with a clever verse from Paper: "When I die, I wanna grow into a tree/I want 'em to bury me/Mixed in with soil and leaves/And when I'm stretched 'cross the land/And your son cuts me down/I wanna be the book your grandchildren read aloud/With the tape on my spine/I'm still proud/I want 'em to hand me down/And give me to Goodwill/And price me for a dollar/Still get shoplifted, hell/Torn open just to give a man shelter."

Nadia Reid - Preservation Coming out of New Zealand, Nadia Reid has a rich contralto and an expert line in melancholy. The sturdy, moving songs are full of folk-rock shimmer, whether from finger-picked acoustics or strummed electrics. While the songs can seem pretty and even decorous, the smart lyrics are full of muscular imagery and touches of darkness. Standout track Richard, for example, begins: "Richard liked the sound of his own voice/By the kitchen in the mirror/It extracted all of our teeth/Filled the sink with blood/And I am on the cross of forgiveness/He wanted it final, finally." If I were going to pick the single, however, it would be the propulsive The Way It Goes, with its mysterious melody and lonely lyrics, a tale told from a car window. This is Reid's second album and has the confidence of an artist working exactly where she wants to be - meet her there.

Michael Chapman - 50 A contemporary of Bob Dylan's, Chapman is stubbornly remains the greatest living unknown legend. This album is a beautiful reminder of all he has accomplished in a 50-year career.

Heliocentrics - A World of Masks While their music never lacks integrity, I haven't been grabbed by anything by this jazz-funk-world collective since 2009's brilliant collaboration with Ethiopian genius Mulatu Astatke - until now. Maybe the addition of shamanic Slovakian singer Barbora Patkova ramped up their intensity, giving the music more of a sense of purpose. The Heliocentrics are big band, and Patkova has a big voice, almost operatic, and when she turns it all the way on and the musicians rise to meet her it's a thrilling experience. This is turning into a banner year for Heliocentrics fans, as they also put out the sly, Curtis Mayfield-influenced soundtrack to The Sunshine Makers, a documentary about LSD. Expand your mind.

American Contemporary Music Ensemble - Thrive on Routine This excellent album features a varied set of new chamber music by Caleb Burhans, Catherine Shaw, and Timo Andres - all of whom are overshadowed by John Luther Adams. The sparkling mystery of In A Treeless Place Only Snow, which closes the collection, stops me in my tracks every single time. I may be the only one who feels this way, however, so I encourage you to listen to all of the beautiful sounds herein. The performances are all first rate, and the production is at the high standards established by Sono Luminus.

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand Three years after the disappointment of Once More 'Round the Sun, the progressive metal titans nearly return to form. Similar to albums like Leviathan and Crack The Skye, there is a loose concept tying the songs together (about a desert wanderer), but they resonate because they reflect real - and often painful - experiences. Every song is a triumph against some kind of adversity, with guitars as the main weapons of mass destruction, leading to more spine-tingling musical moments than I can describe here. Start with Show Yourself, which is their version of a pop song, or Andromeda, which aims for the stars. If you're feeling brave, go all in with the eight-minute epic, Jaguar God. Like a track from Metallica's Master of Puppets, it starts with a skein of delicate acoustic guitars and builds to a sandstorm, ending the album at peak intensity.

This playlist (or one on YouTube) features one song from each artist - find what you like and then go to the album for more listening pleasure.



This list is just a fraction of everything I've been tracking since January 1. Dig deep and keep in the loop by following the playlists of your choice from the list below.

Of Note In 2017

Of Note In 2017 (Classical)

Of Note In 2017 (Electronic)

Of Note In 2017 (Hip Hop & R&B)

Of Note In 2017 (Rock, Folk, Etc.)

Of Note In 2017 (Reissues)

A Nordic Night At National Sawdust

Nordic Affect performing Point of Departure at National Sawdust

It was unseasonably frigid last Wednesday when I headed to Williamsburg for my first visit to National Sawdust. I've had my eye on this venue when it was just a rumor and I was looking for a new job in development. While I never saw the right job for me on their listings, I was excited when they opened and have been intrigued ever since by the variety and creativity of the offerings I heard about in emails and on Facebook. I despaired as events featuring Talea Ensemble and Helga Davis - two of my favorites - went by with me unable to fit them on my calendar. But then all things converged and I was able to attend when they hosted Nordic Affect's New York City Debut. 

This avant garde chamber ensemble created one of the albums of the year with Raindamage and perhaps they also brought the chill in the air from their native Iceland. But there was a warm welcome at the unassuming door that admitted my wife and I to National Sawdust. The chic black interior was made up of interesting angles with the ticket desk on the right and a bar at the end calling you towards the door of the performance space. There is also a separate sit-down bar with a window on to North 6th Street that looks like a great place to get a drink whether music is on the agenda or not. 

We continued on into the room itself and were stunned to discover one of the most beautiful interiors in the city. It's a work of art with obliquely-angled seemingly symbolic panels covering the walls and ceiling surrounding the high stage. We sat at one of the little round tables, joining someone who was there solo. It would have been a little tight - but do-able - had a fourth person joined us. The menu promised creative cocktails and upscale bar food, which would have been even more intriguing if we weren't stuffed from dinner at Sweet Chick. I'll keep this option in mind for next time - which I hope will be soon!

National Sawdust's stunning interior

With zero fanfare, the four women of Nordic Affect came on stage and performed Clockworking, the title track from their 2015 album, accompanied by eerie footage from a 1966 film called Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison. It was riveting to watch the blown-out black and white forms of the workers moving in rhythm to Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir's music. The performance was completely precise but not uptight, with a relaxed joy in making music immediately evident. 

The sound at National Sawdust is so superb that I hardly gave it a thought, the clear acoustic allowing nothing to get between me and the music. This was especially commendable in the pieces that included electronics, like the title track to Raindamage, which they performed later in the evening. But first we had a new work by Hildur Guōnadóttir, Point of Departure, which asks each performer to sing long notes along with their instrument. It's a similar approach that Guōnadóttir took on 2 Circles, a work for violin solo that Nordic Affect's Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir recorded on Clockworking. The results are both meditative and mysterious, with a hint of Medieval plainchant, and a keen observer couldn't help but notice the silent interactions between the players that allowed them to pull it off perfectly. 

Next was Anna Thorvaldsdóttir's Shades of Silence, which also appeared on Clockworking. Before starting it there was a brief pause while Gudrún Óskarsdóttir prepared her harpsichord, placing various items on the strings inside. She also played the sides of the instrument, creating woody thumps, a picked out a sparkling melody from time to time. The performance made the piece seem more approachable somehow, maybe because you could observe how the various parts fit together. 

This was also true of Raindamage and Þýð, which were both performed as a trio by Stefánsdóttir along with Gudrún Hrund Hardardóttir (viola) and Hanna Loftsdóttir (cello). Stefánsdóttir explained that the latter piece, composed by Úlfur Hansson, was built up out of so many layers in the studio that there would be no way to replicate it in concert without a little help - from the audience. So she divided the room into thirds and asked us to hum along with the instrument in our section. She also asked us to stand and reminded us to breathe. I don't think I was on key the entire time but when I crossed into harmony with her violin there was a sensation of belonging and inclusion. Whether being asked to help or not, the audience is part of every concert. It was also a good reminder at how much concentration it can take to play this demanding music, even as they performed it with apparent ease. 

The final work included the full quartet and another projection. Called Loom and composed by Sigfúsdóttir with visuals by Dodda Maggy, this new piece had only been performed once before, earlier in Nordic Affect's American tour. The film consists of hypnotic circular patterns, which were echoed in the music, creating a perfect bookend for the concert. It was easy to become hypnotized there in the dark as the music drew you further into the colorful animations. 

While Loom was conceived to include the film I think the music will stand on its own should Nordic Affect decide to include it on their next album, which is sure to be spectacularly fascinating either way. As I've written over their years, for a tiny country, Iceland is producing a high volume of excellent music. Rather than finding this baffling, I simply listen in wonder. I recommend you try it and see if you find yourself doing the same. 

You may also enjoy:
Collapsing Into Nordic Affect's Raindamage
Skylark's Liminal Journey
Cello For All, Part 2: Michael Nicolas
Best Of 15: Classical & Composed

Collapsing Into Nordic Affect's Raindamage

There's something about this album, the second by the Icelandic chamber ensemble Nordic Affect, that made me collapse a little, a kind of swoon almost, even into that word: raindamage. It evoked for me not something that would lead to a call to your insurance company, but the image of a leaf, bedraggled by rain drops but still clinging to a branch, the last one there. Or pounding sheets of winter rain seen through a picture window, moving across a field, one stalk of growth bent double and vibrating from the impact, the rest standing tall. A childhood memory from the Pyrénées also comes to mind, of watching a massive storm cover the valley below, lightning doubling itself in huge solar reflectors. It's that kind of record, one to send you spinning within yourself.

Raindamage is also the first piece on the album, a composition by Valgeir Siguròsson for violin, viola, cello and electronics, which perfectly combines the physicality of the plucked and bowed strings with the abstraction of the synthesized sounds. It's brief but epic, which can also be said of the other Siguròsson piece, Antigravity, which is solely electronic and descends into a space most wondrous dark.

Two other composers are included, Ùlfur Hansson and Hlynur Aòils Vilmarsson, and in each case they've composed one work for chamber instruments and one for electronics. The combinations of sounds in all cases evoke the interaction between nature's creations and those assembled by man, a gnarled vine ensnaring a power cable. [:n:] by Vilmarsson features the full complement of Nordics - the three strings and harpsichord - and seems to ask a series of unanswered questions, limning them with shimmering harmonics. Vilmarsson's electronic piece, NOA::EMS, hearkens back to the test lab sounds of pioneers like Manny Ghent and Ilhan Mimaroglu, without seeming at all experimental. It's a portrait of sound, in sound.

Hansson, who also created the wonderful White Mountain album in 2013, adds voices to his acoustic composition, Þýð, to spine-tingling effect. He also gets even more physical with the string instruments, gathering them all up into violent skirls of sound - you can feel the horsehair bow catching on the strings. Remember to breathe while listening. The playing by Halla Steinunn Stefásdóttir (violin), Gudrún Hrund Hardadóttir (viola), and Hanna Loftsdóttir, is almost frighteningly assured here, as it is throughout. Harpischordist Gudrún Óskarsdóttir is also excellent. Skin Continuum, Hansson's electronic work, folds an Uchwa Daiko drum into its soundscape, ratcheting up the simmering tension. Then it ends, as all pieces of music must, but it will last in your memory.

You will be left wanting more in any case, so head back to their gorgeous 2015 release, Clockworking, or catch them on their first U.S. tour. Maybe I'll see you at National Sawdust on April 19th!

Note: The word "raindamage" apparently comes from a "poetic fantasia" by Angela Rawlings called A Wide Slumber for Lepidopterists - worth investigating!