IRIS
By evidence (stephan moore + scott smallwood)
Deep Listening (DL 35-2007)
This two-disc collection offers an audio CD with works by evidence, and a DVD that uses this audio in collaboration with videos from “video artists, VJs, vusicians, live video performers, and time-based visualists…”
Successful electronic/computer music is multi-dimensional. Chamber &Host (track 4, audio; track 1, DVD) offers a sonic depth and intricacy that allows detail and line to be felt and heard. The companion video by David Lublin & Jack Turner is simple and mesmerizing, hooking me as though it had a plot with a twist.
IRIS moves from the static and motionless to puzzling rhythmic patterns, offering sound worlds and moving, dancing lines. Most of the videos are captivating, and would do well on large screens.
3 Solos
R. Murray Schafer
Annie Tremblay, soprano
Tim Brady, guitar
Brigitte Poulin, piano
Canadian Music Centre (CMCCD/DVD 12006)
Our friends from up north at the Canadian Music Centre offer another look at their composers, with R. Murray Schafer and 3 Solos.
Music for the Morning of the World sets the text of Rumi (translated into English) for soprano and 4-channel tape. The original analog tape was restored into digital by Tim Brady. The tape is spacious and meditative, with deliberate motions that conjure up images related to the text. Soprano Annie Tremblay navigates a demanding vocal line, not always convincingly. This isn’t her fault, but rather the result of some awkward leaps that are not idiomatic.
Tim Brady returns as guitarist for Le Cri de Merlin, a work composed for Norbert Kraft. This is the first recording/performance on electric guitar. Schafer’s score asks the performer to supply a recording of birds from their native country at the end of the piece.
Concluding this album of electronic music, is a work for solo piano composed for Janina Fialkowska and commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Deluxe Suite, and all of Schafer’s works on this disc, moves from idea to idea in an improvisatory fashion, morphing between ideas with little preparation. Brigitte Poulin performs with remarkable skill.
Peter Scott Lewis
river shining through
Timothy Day, Marc Shapiro, Ciompi String Quartet, and Dorian Wind Quintet
Lapis Island Records 003
Peter Scott Lewis’s most recent release of his music on his own label Lapis Island Records is unassuming. All three performances are professional, the package is self-less and not a hint of inflated hyperbole inhabits the composer’s biography. This is all a relief from the barrage of over-dramatic, yet poorly produced homemade albums that sometimes inhabit my mailbox.
River Shining Through is well-crafted and engaging. Exploring ideal textures for string quartet, Lewis shows a knack for the medium. He gives the players some fun counterpoint through out, and spicy rhythmic ideas in the final two movements.
Lewis shows equal skill and intuition when writing for winds. Serenade for Winds is delightful and bouncy; with tender moments juxtaposed with driving chordal textures (“Serendipity”). Lewis’ works are full of contrast, alternating between complex harmonic motions and simple melodies.