Staff & Community Picks: July 29

A weekly rundown of the music our staff and listeners are loving lately! Are you interested in contributing some thoughts on your favorite new music albums? Drop us a line!



the_little_death_album_cover_1-1Religion + hormones + hip hop beats = nihilist pop opera.  The Little Death Vol. 1 is boppy, fun & sentimental.  Strong vocals from Mellissa Hughes and Matt Marks’ twisted take on the traditional “boy meets girl” story make this one of my favorite CDs in our music library.  I dare you not to dance to “I Don’t Have Any Fun.” – by Rachele Hales

 

 

 


71GJwJ+HBtL._SY355_If you enjoy Spanish and Latin American music, you’ll find a lot to love in “Andalusian Fantasy,” a collection of pieces written and performed by pianist Lionel Sainsbury. The compositions embrace the darker, more romantic side of traditional Latin music, incorporating a pleasantly crunchy chord just seldom enough to keep things melodic overall. Imagine if tango, Debussy, and Gershwin all met in one album, and you’ll get a sense for Sainsbury’s music. – by Jill Kimball

 

homepage_large.e22fb394I’ve been a huge Arcade Fire fan for years, and I was completely awestruck when this album came out.  The whole idea behind the works on this album – letting the human body dictate the tempi, is one of the most revolutionary concepts I’ve encountered in new music.  I can’t really think of many albums that represent Second Inversion SO WELL – the composer/genre/artist crossover, the musicians on the album – yMusic, Kronos Quartet, Nadia Sirota, Nico Muhly, Aaron and Bryce Dessner – all are revolutionaries in the new music world and helping to create music that completely breaks the mold of classical, despite the instruments they’re playing. – by Maggie Stapleton

ALBUM REVIEW: “Music for Wood and Strings” by Bryce Dessner + So Percussion

by Maggie Molloy

So Percussion 0125So Percussion 0131 copy

To say that guitarist and composer Bryce Dessner thinks outside the box would be a bit of an understatement. After all, why limit yourself to the dimensions of a typical hollow-bodied acoustic string instrument when you can create your very own amplified hammered dulcimer?

 

Though perhaps best known as the guitarist for the indie rock band the National, Dessner is also a distinguished composer and innovator in his own right. He recently released “Music for Wood and Strings,” a 36-minute piece scored for amplified, dulcimer-like “Chordsticks” and performed by the experimental percussion quartet Sō Percussion. Dessner designed the instruments with the help of instrument builder Aron Sanchez of Buke and Gase, a Brooklyn-based musical duo.

Each Chordstick resembles two electric guitar necks laid out next to each other in opposite directions, though the instrument is played more like a hammered dulcimer. Each instrument has eight double-course strings and is tuned to a pair of chords. Using sticks or violin bows, the percussionists can sound either of the two harmonies, play individual strings, melodies, drones, and tremolos, or create a wide range of percussive sounds. The Chordsticks vary in pitch range, and the group is anchored by a bass instrument that can play fretted chromatic lines, as well as by occasional, muted interjections from a bass drum and woodblocks.

Commissioned by Carnegie Hall, “Music for Wood and Strings” seamlessly combines elements of post-minimalism, avant-garde, and folk musical influences. The effect is mesmerizing. Dessner creates a remarkably rich range of musical timbres within a circling, post-minimalist framework, crafting a beautiful and kaleidoscopic sound world through his dense contrapuntal rhythms and constantly shifting musical textures.

“I thought the instruments are so beautiful, I’m going to make [the piece] a really rich sound world—very consonant, also inspired by American folk songs, which are based on these open chords and open tunings,” Dessner said. “So the piece itself has that sound about it, where it’s played by these percussionists and the rhythm is incredibly difficult and layered and precise, but then it’s done with harmonies that are really sweet, actually.”

The work is charming and sincere, employing the perfect balance of silence and sound to create a fully captivating sonic meditation. Dessner’s colorful musical palette features hocketed rhythms, mirrored inversions, drones, tremolos, rhythmic repetition, contrapuntal textures, and a primarily tonal musical language, creating a vivid and distinctive sound that pulls the listener in from start to finish.

Writing the piece for four of the most renowned percussionists in contemporary classical music also doesn’t hurt. Sō Percussion’s perfect blend of rhythmic precision and organic expressivity brings the score to life, immersing the listener in an unforgettable soundscape filled with sweet strings and shimmering rhythms.

Who knew you could craft such an entrancing and intricate sound world from just a few pieces of wood and some strings?

ALBUM REVIEW: Bang on a Can All-Stars’ “Field Recordings”

by Maggie Molloy 

ca21108_field_recordings_cover

You’ve probably heard countless buskers playing bucket drums and other found objects on city streets—but you’ve never heard anyone bang on a can like this before.

The Bang on a Can All-Stars are a six-member amplified ensemble known for exploring the furthest reaches of the classical music world, with an affinity for imagination, experimentation, multimedia music performances, and all things avant-garde.

The one of a kind ensemble is comprised of cellist Ashley Bathgate, bassist Robert Black, pianist Vicky Chow, percussionist David Cossin, guitarist Mark Stewart, and clarinetist Ken Thomson, and their wide-ranging repertoire spans from the minimalist musings of Philip Glass and Steve Reich to the computer music compositions of Paul Lansky and Tristan Perich.

But the All-Stars’ latest project combines an even more colorful palette of creative influences. Toeing the line between music and sound art, “Field Recordings” is a new multimedia project which combines music, film, found sound, and obscure audio-visual archives to create a dialogue between past and present art traditions.

(Purchase links and more information from Cantaloupe Music)

“It’s a kind of ghost story,” composer David Lang said of the album. “We asked composers from different parts of the music world to find a recording of something that already exists—a voice, a sound, a faded scrap of melody—and then write a new piece around it.”

Lang is one of the co-founders of Bang on a Can, along with Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon. The three appear as featured composers on the new 12-track album, along with Florent Ghys, Christian Marclay, Tyondai Braxton, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Todd Reynolds, Steve Reich, Bryce Dessner, Mira Calix, and Anna Clyne.

The album begins with a performance of Julia Wolfe’s “Reeling,” a lively piece based around a sound clip of a French Canadian vocalist. He sings in a twirling, sing-song style with no lyrics, his melody taking on the role of a fiddle or banjo soloing in a folk reel. Little by little Wolfe adds more instruments to the mix, creating an increasingly chaotic and computerized sound, like a record being rewound and replayed over and over, speaking to the album’s overarching theme of manipulating recorded sound.

The next piece on the album is nothing short of an absolute treasure. Florent Ghys’s “An Open Cage” uses as its basis excerpts from John Cage’s “Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse),” a poetic five-hour diary recorded by Cage himself a year before his death. In Ghys’s piece, a solo pizzicato bass line dances within the rhythms of Cage’s calm and serene narration, painting his deadpan delivery with a funky groove and a distinctly contemporary color. The lively bass line creates an undeniably catchy duet with Cage’s witty and obscure observations, and the piece grows in musical force, gradually adding more instruments until finally a small chorus of voices appears, echoing Cage’s words.

Christian Marclay’s “Fade to Slide” is equally experimental. The multimedia piece is a dramatic exploration into the rich sounds and distinctive timbres of the world around us, featuring everything from water splashing to record playing, bike riding to gong ringing, glass breaking to soup eating, perfume spraying to bagpiping. Yes, even bagpiping.

Marclay specializes in creating sonic collages from found footage, as evidenced by the imaginative—and at times humorous—combinations of recorded sounds in both the audio and video versions of the piece. (The video version is included in “Field Recordings” on a DVD along with five other multimedia pieces.)

The All-Stars also pay tribute to one of the biggest names in contemporary classical: Steve Reich. The album features the ensemble’s own arrangement of “The Cave of Machpelah,” an excerpt from Reich’s multimedia opera, “The Cave.” The slow-moving and ambient piece features an interesting mixture of musical timbres, with wispy, high-pitched cello strings skidding above a deep, droning bass, muffled recorded sound, and a bowed xylophone.

The album ends with a performance of Anna Clyne’s “A Wonderful Day,” the first in a series of short electroacoustic works combining recordings of Chicago street musicians with live instrumental ensembles. This particular piece features the raw, slow voice of an elderly man singing a sweet and poignant tune, surrounded by the muted sounds of the city and the All-Stars’ gentle accompaniment.

Each piece on the album uses recorded sound in a different and distinct way, but they all have one thing in common: they combine music of the past with music of the present, thereby crafting a new vision for music of the future. And in doing so, “Field Recordings” opens up a colorful new can of worms in contemporary classical music.

LIVE CONCERT SPOTLIGHT: February 5-10

by Maggie Molloy

“Baroque-N-Hearts,” eighth blackbird, and a brassy quartet are just a few of this week’s music events to help you start your February off right!

30th Annual Seattle Improvised Music Festival

ballon-600x400

Seattle’s favorite musical improvisers may be used to flying by the seat of their pants, but this weekend they’ve got some pretty big plans: the 30th Annual Seattle Improvised Music Festival. The three-day festival highlights the growth and expansion of new and experimental music in Seattle by featuring local and guest artists.

This Thursday, catch the electro-clarinet concoctions of Matthew Ostrowski and Paul Hoskin followed by a quartet of trumpets and trombones. Friday’s lineup features electronics, found objects, and plenty of jazzy, snazzy brass. And finally, Saturday will feature saxophonist Neil Welch joined by two harpists, as well as two different trios featuring electric guitar: one alongside cello and drums and the other alongside trumpet and electronics.

The festival is this Thursday, Feb. 5, through Saturday, Feb. 7 at 8 p.m. each night at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.

eighth blackbird on the UW World Series

eighth-blackbird

“I know noble accents and lucid, inescapable rhythms; but I know, too, that the blackbird is involved in what I know,” wrote the American Modernist poet Wallace Stevens in his 1917 poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”

It is from this verse that the Chicago-based new music ensemble eighth blackbird takes its name. The group combines the virtuosity and finesse of their classical music training with the energy and fearlessness of contemporary music.

This weekend, the sextet is coming through Seattle to perform an all-acoustic recital featuring works by György Ligeti, the National’s Bryce Dessner, Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry, and several other contemporary composers.

The performance is this Saturday, Feb. 7 at 7:30 p.m. at the Floyd and Delores Jones Playhouse Theater at University of Washington.

Seattle Pro Musica’s New Sounds Northwest

Choir in Rehearsal

The Northwest is known for its beautiful mountain ranges, its gorgeous coastlines, and its lush forestry—with all of these breathtaking landscapes, it’s no wonder our region’s composers are so inspired. This weekend, Seattle Pro Musica is celebrating one of the most magnificent things about the Pacific Northwest: its music.

“New Sounds Northwest” is a series of outreach performances featuring new music by Northwest composers, performed by the celebrated Seattle Pro Musica choir. This weekend’s program features works by Morten Lauridsen, Vijay Singh, Brian Galante, Eric William Barnum, and more!

The performance is this Sunday, Feb. 8 at 3 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church in Tacoma. An additional performance is next Sunday, Feb. 15 at 3 p.m. at Church of the Redeemer in Kenmore.

Early Music Underground Presents “Baroque-N-Hearts”

EMU

Whether you’re single or seeing someone, the new Early Music Underground has the perfect performance to put you in the Valentine’s Day mood. They’re teaming up with Naked City Brewery to present “Baroque-N-Hearts,” an evening of beautiful music, delightful company, and delicious food and drinks. Bach, brews, and burgers—sounds like a match made in heaven!

The event features Baroque music for (and against) Valentine’s Day performed by singer Madeline Bersamina, flutist Josh Romatowski, cellist Juliana Soltis, and harpsichordist Henry Lebedinsky.

“This is not museum music,” Lebedinsky said. “This is living, dynamic, passionate people playing music that can really connect and move people today, if given the chance.”

The performance is next Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 7 p.m. at Naked City Brewery in Greenwood.