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Vita di San Francesco
When, in the summer of 1992, Lutz-Werner Hesse visited St. Francis’s hometown in Umbria, he was deeply moved by Giotto’s frescos in the Basilica. Using prints of the frescos, Hesse later developed a dramatic sequence, which was meant to serve as the basis for a composition revolving around the life of the saint. Gongs had always held a special fascination for Hesse. So, for this piece, he pitted 13 gongs against one organ: “The organ, I thought, is a particularly suitable partner for the gongs s…
The Brain Of The Dog In Section
Peaked-out duo recordings from one of the founders of the form and his ever adventurous, cello-torque-ing protégé. Recorded live in November 2007 at Chicago's famed Hideout destination, Brö and brother FLH combine for the first time ever in this penultimately intimate configuration. Although 'Braindog' (as we affectionately refer to these hypnotic tones around here) was recorded in an ultra-industrial urban warehouse district, the resulting music is über-organic, almost onomotopaeic at points. C…
Seal Of The Blue Lotus
Seal of the Blue Lotus is the 1965 debut from the extraordinary folk guitarist Robbie Basho, who released numerous albums for John Fahey's Takoma label during the '60s. His mystical approach to six- and 12-string guitar improvisation shares many similarities to John Fahey in that Basho, too, was inspired by Eastern modalities -- his six-string melodies recalling the Indian ragas of Ravi Shankar's "Dhun in Musra Mund." "Mountain Man's Farewell" is an outstanding piece that displays the early seed…
Eclipse
Originally released in 1975 as an LP on Iskra Records (ISKRA-001). 'First session 1: Gradually Projection'. 'First session 2: Gradually Projection'. 'Second session: Mass Projection'. New Direction Unit are Masayuki Takayanagi: electric guitar. Kenji Mori: alto saxophone, flute, recorder. Nobuyoshi Ino: bass. Hiroshi Yamazaki: drums, percussion. Recorded by Mikio Aoki in Tokyo, March 14, 1975. Includes liner notes in English by Alan Cummings.
Der Abgrund
"Der Abgrund is the last act of an unsolved theorem which must remains the same. It's the arcane enchanter of a denied truth since mimesis of itself, as not manifested manifestation that nevertheless perseveres on its concept of form beyond the form. It's omnivalent hypostasis of a prismatic Maurizio Bianchi who is annulling himself and reinvents between a climate and the other without solution of continuity, today in symbiotic communion with Frequency In Cycles Per Second. "Der Abgrund" is an o…
Orchestral Works & Chamber Music
In the early 1970s Feldman increasingly turned his attention to works for orchestra, in most cases combined with a solo instrument, like Piano and Orchestra (1975). One aspect that was important to him in all of these works was a research into sound, an "unceasing effort to create, by way of exclusion and integration, by operating with colored projection surfaces and various spatial levels, a kind of self-supporting structure elastic enough to take up the exactly fixed initial impulse and contin…
mehrere kurze walzer
Franz Schubert may not have been an expert dancer, but he certainly was an extremely skilled composer of dance music. Most of his numerous dances – often miniatures comprising only a few chords – were improvisations created for special occasions, such as house parties. And many of these impromptu waltzes were noted down by Schubert later, including several pieces for piano four hands. Brahms, who held Schubert's music in high esteem, remained faithful to his own majestic musical language in his …
I Love My Organ
The bulk of the material on Tom Recchion's second album for Birdman was recorded just after the completion of Chaotica in the mid-'80s, and sounds like a natural continuation of that record (despite the absence of any Esquivel). Recchion is assisted on some tracks by noted musician, composer, author, journalist for The Wire, and music curator David Toop (himself a collaborator with Eno, Jon Hassell, John Zorn, Talvin Singh, Adrian Sherwood, and Scanner). Recchion labored on I Love My Organ for y…
Works for Soprano
Kurtág's attachment to speech is also to be sensed in the works from this first period of maturity, something which emerged more concretely in this CD maily cenetered around the Russian language, which he learned especially in order to read Dostoevsky, and which is almost "sacred" for him, in the way that Latin was for Stravinsky. In his Russian works, opp 16 to 19, Kurtág's response to Russian prosody transforms his musical dialect with a poignant lyricism; this is to be heard both in the works…
Creak above 33
An interesting development in recent times has been the transAtlantic and trans-generational connections being made in the improvisation community. The Emanem recording by Steve Beresford with Okkyung Lee and Peter Evans, and George Lewis' collaboration with GIO are just two recent examples that come to mind. At the forefront of this trend is the duo of Nate Wooley (trumpet & amplifier) and Paul Lytton (percussion & live electronics) bringing two of the most questioning minds in improvised music…
Piano Duet
Before the epigones take over the stage we are given a chance to hear out Bach himself: the unfinished four-voice Contrapunctus XIV from the Art of the Fugue marks the starting point of Andreas Grau's and Götz Schumacher's remarkable exploration of the Bach cosmos. In the Berlin autograph of the Contrapunctus XIV the place where the score breaks off is marked by an inscription: "At the point where the name BACH is introduced in the countersubject to this fugue, the composer died." Even though fr…
Steve Reich: Tehillim The Desert Music
Two Reich masterpieces, definitively recorded, featuring a crystalline, high-energy Tehillim with the ONLY RECORDING of the newly revised version of The Desert Music. A must for Reich fans. For freshness and focus, the new recording of Tehillim surpasses the 1981 recording by Mr. Reich & his own ensemble.
Confusion / Gentleman
Collecting two of Fela Kuti's finest mid-1970s albums onto one disc, CONFUSION/GENTLEMAN presents the revered Nigerian Afro-pop renegade in the midst of an early career stride. Released in '73, GENTLEMAN consists of the latter three out of this set's four tracks, and is particularly notable since it marks the fiery performer's studio debut on the saxophone. Never one to shy away from challenges, Kuti offers up an impassioned sax solo at the beginning of the extended title song (even though he ha…
Fama
Site-specific FAMA, “audio theatre piece for large ensemble, eight voices, actress, and sound structure,” requires the best performers for execution. Luckily, Furrer draws upon the talented Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and Klangforum Wien. Also credited are the architect, acoustician, technical and lighting engineer, costumer and stage direction. Texts are by Ovid and Arthur Schnitzler. The focus on space and solo instruments (contrabass flute and two bass clarinets) suggest Nono’s late aestheti…
Pléiades
Featured works: "Pléiades" and Psappha." Performed by Kroumata Percussion Ensemble; Gert Mortensen, percussion. "Xenakis has been very interested in percussion music -- ever since his orchestral piece 'Terretektorh (1966) in which the instrumental forces are spread throughout the hall, by way of 'Psappha' (1975) for a lone percussion virtuoso all the way to 'Pléiades' (1979) for six percussionists -- perhaps the largest composition in the entire percussion repertoire, and the most daring …
Milano New Wave 1980-83
a representative and intense snapshot of the Milanese sinthy wave scene of the early eighties, 20 tracks that recount the salient steps of the brief but intense career of four Milanese bands — from the post-punk of Other Side, to the oblique funk of State Of Art, to the evident Kraftwerk infl uences of La Maison, to the electro of Jeunesse d’Ivoire — four bands that illustrate the mood of an underground scene tha…
Proud Princess Of A Brand New City
After several hugely impressive concerts, where the visuals from Kurt D\\'Haeseleer are almost as important as the music, Guillaume Graux or Tuk comes up with a first cd. \\'Proud Princess of a Brand New City\\' contains mostly finished versions of the tracks he used the first three years at his live performances. The main sources on the cd are guitars, most of them so heavily treated that you barely hear it\\'s a guitar. Even if it\\'s only a beat, it might be guitar. You never know on this rec…
Songbook
If you'd like to hear what might remain, and might survive, of the popular common musical property, these two works by the Salzburg composer Clemens Gadenstätter will give you some essential clues. "Akkor(d/t)anz" is based on the character of Romantic piano music manifested by monumental chords. The explosion of the chord is followed by pulsations derived from differentiated perceptions of its details. The "dance" of chords in accordance with new formations of the original chord demands an energ…
Calling Out Of Context
Now I know what it's like to assume you know what Arthur Russell sounds like. Back in the day, those comfortable with his modern classical accomplishments were baffled by his acetates of loopy leftfield disco. Likewise, lovers of these dance tracks were confounded by their beatless, beatific recasting on World of Echo. And then there were listeners astounded by the intimacy of his voice and cello work, stymied by both the pop songs and the classical works, all spinnin…
The butterfly and the bee
Following the success of their very first performance together at the 2004 FREEDOM OF THE CITY festival (heard on Emanem 4215), Roger Smith and Louis Moholo-Moholo went into the studio to record some more. Their second meeting went so well that they recorded enough duo improvisations for a complete CD. The resulting music is heard complete, with Smith on Spanish guitar and Moholo on augmented drum set.