★Another Timbre
Violin and String Quartet
Dating from two years before the composer's death in 1987, 'Violin and String Quartet' lasts two and a quarter hours, throughout which the strings weave gently shifting patterns of sound. It is one of Feldman's most beautiful pieces.
Echo Stane
Nine solos for Hardanger fiddle, composed and performed by Sarah-Jane Summers, a virtuosic Scottish musician based in Norway. Sarah-Jane's music stretches from traditional folk music to experimental work. This album is one of experimental solos, but nonetheless contains references to traditional music both in the titles of the pieces, and sometimes in the music itself.
Natural World
A haunting 55-minute work for voice, piano and electronics by one of the world's leading experimental composers. Natural World is in three sections - Field Guide, Chorus and Seascape. It starts playfully, with Juliet Fraser singing encyclopedia-style facts about birds and animals against Mark Knoop's stop-start piano motif. But, following the introduction of field recordings and then electronics, the music gradually - almost imperceptibly - becomes darker until, without ever explicitly addressin…
Evening Star, Vesper Bell
Beautiful 54-minute work by Magnus Granberg, written for and wonderfully played by Apartment House. As with almost all of Granberg's compositions, a strong ability in improvisation is essential as the score presents musicians with pools of musical material from which they have to select sounds according to what they are hearing in the moment from the other musicians. Sumptuously gorgeous music.
Neha
Two orchestral works by Adrián Demoč, the highly-acclaimed Slovak composer currently based in Spain. The title track 'Neha' (2018) creates a shimmering tension by overlaying 'well-tempered' chords with the same chords using natural harmonics outside of the tempered tuning system. This doubling creates a gentle trembling of interferences. The second piece, 'Popínavá hudba', evolves from a single melodic line, which is repeated with slight variations such that it curves and is bent into fascinatin…
Sound Pieces
Apartment House realise seven works by the pioneering US experimental composer. The first six pieces are text scores for open instrumentation, while 'Peace/Tree' is a seven movement work for violin, cello and piano that specifies pitches, while still leaving a lot of freedom of interpretation. The download also includes an alternative realisation of 'Quintessential' that didn't fit on the CD
Clear and Hazy Moons
Another young composer who you’ve probably not heard of, but whose music you really should get to know. Four stunning pieces, three played by Apartment House, and one by the Rothko Collective. Brilliant music that really shouldn’t be possible from someone so young.
Vesperi
Another Timbre is back with yet another incredible statement from the contemporary landscape of experimental sound, “Vesperi”, the debut album by the Italian composer Marco Baldini from the Florence-based ensemble, Blutwurst. A striking series of minimal works for acoustic instruments, drawing their inspiration from early music and North Indian (Hindustani) classical music, and executed by two remarkable ensembles - a quartet of two cellos and two double bass, and a trio of cello, double bass, a…
Slow Poem For Stiebler
An extended duo for violin and reed organ, developed by Biliana and Sarah which extends a series of short gestures from Ernstalbrecht Stiebler’s composition ‘Für Biliana’ into slowly expanding harmonic suspensions, highlighting the simple beauty and fragility of the intervals and chords.
Melodies
*In process of stocking* An extraordinary project arising from Frank Denyer’s ethno-musicological studies in the 1970’s, which forced him to go back to basics and ask himself ‘what is a melody?’ and ‘what is a note?’ Frank answered these questions by composing a series of 25 pieces starting from single-note melodies, through melodies with 2, 3 or 4 notes, ending with more complex pieces with 14- and 15-note melodies. A wonderful double CD, with a 24-page booklet containing an essay by Frank de…
Borderland Melodies
Three wonderful recent compositions by acclaimed Swiss composer Jürg Frey - ‘Movement, Ground, Fragility’, ‘L’état de simplicité’ and ‘Borderland Melodies’. All beautifully played by Apartment House"The original idea had been for a CD of pieces that use both clarinet and bass clarinet, which would have given me the opportunity to play alongside Heather Roche, Apartment House’s regular clarinetist. However, the pandemic intervened and limited my activities as a player. Then I was seriously ill fo…
Naiads
A series of five haunting chamber works by UK-based composer Martin Iddon. The titles of the pieces are taken from different kinds of water nymphs in Greek mythology. Apartment House perform a set of five evocative and enigmatic chamber pieces by Leeds-based Martin Iddon, whose last CD ‘Sapindales’ sold out earlier this year."The naiads are freshwater nymphs from Greek myth. There were five different sorts of naiads, each one of which provides the name for one of the pieces in my cycle, Naiads: …
L'art de toucher
First, long over-due, Another Timbre disc of the US composer Evan Johnson. Five works from his unique, whispering soundworld. Three pieces in the ‘L’art de toucher le clavecin’ series, with ‘thaes ofereode, thisses swa maeg’ for cello and voice, and ‘Plan and section of the same reservoir’ played by Trio Accanto. Note that the CD version of this album includes a fifth track, 'Plan and section of the same reservoir', which can't be included as part of the Bandcamp download for copyright reasons.…
A Coiled Form
'A Coiled Form' by UK-based composer Bryn Harrison. The piece was originally composed as a shorter solo in 2020, and then revised and expanded in collaboration with violinist Sarah Saviet, who gives an astonishing virtuosic performance, to become a 50-minute solo work. It was released on CD by Another Timbre in November 2022.
Arena Ladridos
A live performance of saxophonist Bhob Rainey, electronics artist Bonnie Jones and percussionist Chris Cogburn
Meander Selection
Sublime string quartets, piano works, and a short piece for electronics.
"The music of John Lely has run a continuous thread through the programmes of Apartment House for some 20 years. A subtle, yet sinuous presence, producing music that has a quiet yet significant sounding air about it. Lely’s titles of his works are ambiguous, yet point to hidden constructs and origins, Pale Signal, Meander Section or Karnaugh Quartets for example. Ambiguous perhaps, but revealing music of great clarity and a…
Codex Vivere
A 75-minute piece for septet in nine movements by the young Texas-based composer.
Somatic Refrain
Another Timbre presents four chamber works showing the wide range of music by unique Canadian composer Allison Cameron. Played by Apartment House and The Allison Cameron Band.
An Album
Five typically matter-of-fact (but also very beautiful) chamber works by one of the UK’s most under-rated composers.
Hymnkus Thoreau Drawings Two
"Some years ago we performed the John Cage Thoreau Drawings work at dawn break in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park on a rather chilly November morning. As a visual artist I have always delighted in Cage’s own visual art and its connections to nature and Henry David Thoreau. The graphical notational elements used in Cage’s score are not, however, his own, but derived from the many small sketches of plants and other natural ephemera found in Thoreau’s Journal, (which I highly recommend also as a porta…