CD Review

Ambient, Best of, CD Review, File Under?

Best of 2021: Philip Blackburn and Chris Campbell (CD Review)

Best of 2021: Recordings by Philip Blackburn and Chris Campbell

 

Philip Blackburn

Justinian Intonations

Neuma CD

 

Chris Campbell

Orison

Innova LP

 

 

Both Philip Blackburn and Chris Campbell are poly-artists, sitting astride composition and sound art and working with homemade (or, in the case of Blackburn, also Partch made) instruments. In 2021, Blackburns Justinian Intonations and Campbells Orison topped the currently crowded field of ambient classical, providing long form pieces that encourage contemplative listening. It is frustrating that some quarters have tagged them with a New Age label, as their work is more intricate and, frankly, interesting than what is generally given that genre designation.

 

A sound prayer and meditation in seven parts, Campbell says of Orison that it is his version of sitting. The music is contemplative but also collaborative, made by a mixed instrumental ensemble of fourteen musicians that features some of contemporary classicals heavy hitters. There are stretches of drone, but also places of activity, melodic patterns, instrumental solos, outbursts of percussion, swelling crescendos, and glissandos. Use of instrumental layering creates beguiling sounds deftly orchestrated. The move through a number of demeanors sparks interest without ever diminishing the contemplative aspects of the work. Orison is a dazzling, refreshing, and distinctively individual composition.

 

Blackburns Justinian Intonations begins with Out Beyond, a five-minute opener featuring the wide-ranging vocalist Ryland Angel singing a translation of Rumi in scalar passages, a conch shell solo, and ambient noise such as crunching footsteps. The title work is based on the reverberation times in two ancient cisterns in Europe. A simple device – clapping in the spaces – yields information that is stretched out, spectrally analyzed, and tweaked for maximum overtone experience. The results create harmonically intricate drones that change a great deal over the course of the piece. Angels chanting is overdubbed in places to add a performative element to the proceedings. Like Orison, Blackburns music is simultaneously meditative and animated, rewarding patient and close listening with an abundance of beautiful, unreproducible sounds.

 

  • Christian Carey
by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, File Under?, Improv, jazz

Best of 2021 – Craig Taborn on ECM (CD Review)

Sequenza 21 Best of 2021

 

Craig Taborn

Shadowplay

ECM Records

 

I first became aware of pianist Craig Taborn in the early aughts, writing about him for (dearly departed) Copper Press and Signal to Noise and contributing reviews of his various outings as leader and sideperson since. In his recent playing, Taborn has displayed increasing expansiveness and interest in diversely complex formal designs. Shadowplay is a 2020 live recording of the pianist at Konzerthaus, Wien. The full hour and a quarter of it is improvised material, some pieces providing a fresh perspective on Taborns creativity.

 

The opener, Bird Templars, is representative of the frequent juxtapositions of musical techniques employed on the recording. It starts pianissimo with a repeated mid-register tremolo and a gradually unfolding melody in the lower register, then doubled in rumbling octaves. The oscillation builds into chordal tremolos with the countermelody now placed in the middle register. A repeated figure in the bass starts to define the harmony, and it builds into octave arpeggios over the tremolos, now more insistent, and then a series of close-spaced intervals, a collection that will reappear in various guises. The roles shift, with chords in the left hand and a continually repeated unison in the right. These are the building blocks for the material that ensues, with a development in which sharing of material between hands is expanded and reconsidered. The middle section finally concludes with a keyboard spanning scale with the sustain pedal held down. This is followed by a section that puts the chords in the left hand and a mournful melody in the right in a grand crescendo of activity, which dissolves into the close-spaced interval group played inverted in the left hand while thirds in the right climb upward and revert back to tremolos to close. To work out such a framework on the fly takes technical skill, contrapuntal chops, and tremendous concentration.

 

Beginning with dissonant fragments of material, Shadowplay demonstrates concern with stylistic plurality. It moves through swing time sections, ostinato arpeggiations, thick repeated chords, a passage of minimalism, and an extended coda of repeated mottos in both left and right hand that link together in polyrhythmic post-bop fashion. At the very end, the motto pops up an octave to explore the soprano register and then, abruptly, stops.

 

The listener is treated to several more long form improvisations with compositional deployment of formal design, including the pair of Discordia Concors, a Schoenbergian essay with glissandos alongside melodic angularity and Concordia Discors that more resembles the color chords of Messiaen accompanying a mercurial ballad melody, which then goes into a double time ramble. There is a build to a protracted clarion repeated unison, then slowing to a glacial version of the ballad tune. Conspiracy of Things begins with a blustery cascade of dissonances that moves into an ebullient set of bebop variations. It finishes with an accelerando of chromatic passagework over a repeated bass groove.

 

A Code with Spells brings together a bluesy ballads melodic embellishments, repeated bass riff, and imaginative chordal exploration. Here as elsewhere, many different dynamic shadings and variations of phrasing create an abundant variety of impressions. The repetition eventually spreads to the entire texture, in successive ferocious builds and then a decrescendoing denouement daring the listener to guess when it will cease. Near the end, a triplet figure inserts itself and proliferates to take over the rhythm, accelerating to an abrupt close.

 

Now in Hope finishes the concert with a gospel/bop hybrid that is the closest material to traditional jazz on Shadowplay. At its conclusion, enthusiastic applause is left untrimmed – feel free to join in.

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?, Piano

Iron Orchid (CD Review)

Iron Orchid

Ning Yu and David Bird

New Focus Recordings

 

Composer and electronic musician David Bird’s work Iron Orchid enlists pianist Ning Yu as a collaborator. Bird’s electronics often provide steely sounds that accord both with the title and the inside the piano work that Yu does. In fact, the second word of the title plays a role in the piece as well, indicating the organic nature of its formal design. So does the presence of live electronics against an acoustic piano, albeit one that has effects, microtones, and reverb as part of its palette. Thus in sections like “Iron,” reverb-hued electronics and string noise create thorny textures; an interesting coda involves a simple piano ostinato that is distressed with quarter tones and Bird unleashing plucking noises to a quasi-electronica beat.

 

The shape of Iron Orchid is somewhat hollowed out, with the outer movements of sizable duration while the central movements serve as aphoristic impressions. “Interlude” includes high sine tones throughout, with an atonal introduction followed by flowing ostinatos. “Prism” features a slow build from the electronics while foregrounded piano plays an angular and rising accelerando; Bird responds in kind with analog bleeps. “A Thin War of Metal” once again juxtaposes acerbic electronic textures with clusters and extended chords that give a nod to postmodern jazz. “Between Walls” returns the proceedings to inside the piano effects, this time  against windswept electronics. 

 

The final movement, “Petals,” brings together a number of non-metallic sounds to create a section that highlights the organic nature of Iron Orchid’s concept. A submarine klaxon opens the movement, followed by granular synth textures set against Yu playing reverberant single notes. A cello sample enters to create counterpoint against the piano, while a distorted series of electronic ostinatos push against the acoustic foreground. Yu takes up a mournful chord progression that banishes the most pointed electronic interjections, with bent notes, rumbling, and periodic percussive attacks creating an affecting coda. Iron Orchid is an engaging listen throughout. At a half hour long, it seems to cry out for a sequel to fill out a duo recital program. Here’s hoping. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, File Under?, Piano, Twentieth Century Composer

Best of 2021: Messiaen on Kairos (CD Review)

Sequenza 21 – Best of 2021

 

Olivier Messiaen

Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jésus

Alfonso Gómez, piano

Kairos CD

 

In 1944, Olivier Messiaen wrote a recital length work (about 2 hours in duration) for pianist Yvonne Loriod, one of his proteges and, later, his spouse. Vingt regard sur l’enfant-Jésus (“Twenty Visions of the Infant Jesus”) widely encompasses the techniques of Messiaen’s musical language and epitomizes the importance of religious contemplation and corresponding symbolism in his work. Where some Christmas music takes a sentimental approach to regarding the infant Jesus, there is none of that here. Instead, Vingt regards explores the awe inspiring power of this event, with music that ranges from ecstatic joy (Noël) to prayerful reverence (Le Baiser de-l’Enfant Jésus) to fear of the abyss. 

 

Messiaen was quick to point out that, while religious symbolism and belief were intrinsic to his creativity, believers and non-believers alike could be moved by his music. However, his intimate knowledge of scriptural symbolism is intrinsic to Vingt Regards and is well explicated in Meinrad Walter’s lucid booklet notes. The movements are interconnected in a number of ways. The modes of limited transposition are the building blocks of the pitch material, and the composer’s characteristic birdsong is also present in many places, with great eloquence in Regards de la Vierge. Messiaen pointed out a particular chordal motif that is frequently present at pivotal points, as well as a God theme, a theme of the Star and the Cross, and a theme of Mystical Love, helping to bind Vingt Regards together. Correspondingly, his interest in syncopation and mixed meters abets the livelier sections, with complex yet exuberant dance music, as in Regard de l’esprit de joie, and in Par lui tout a été fait. In addition to Trinitarian formulations, Messiaen pays special attention to the Virgin Mary. Indeed, Première Communion de la Vierge (“First Communion of the Virgin”) is one of the most moving portions of the piece.

 

There are a number of recordings of Vingt Regards, but Alfonso Gómez proves to be an individual and distinctive interpreter, skilful in navigating the piece’s many challenges and expressive details. Aphoristic sections like L’Echange and Regard des hauteurs , are provided with incisive clarity of gesture, the latter’s birdsong practically evoking a grove of avians. Where Gómez truly thrives, though, is in the longer movements, where he shapes the juxtaposition of motives to underpin vivid textures. His rendition of the piece’s final movement, Regard de l’église d’amour (“Contemplation of the Church of Love”)  knits together many threads of the essential material of Vingt Regards, providing a sophisticated and powerful conclusions to this towering example of 20th century pianism. 

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Los Angeles

Chas Smith – Three

Three is a new CD release from Cold Blue Music by musician and master-machinist Chas Smith. Now residing in rural Grass Valley, California, Smith lived for many years in the San Fernando Valley, and this put him squarely in the center of the Los Angeles aerospace and movie industries. Smith was a student of James Tenney and Harold Budd, which led to later friendships with both men. Smith’s long experience as a machinist has resulted in the ability to fabricate specialized musical instruments and intriguing sound sculptures. His industrial metalworking is no doubt still in use, and his sound sculptures have been heard in a number of feature films. Several of these mechanical creations, with evocative names such as Que Lastas, Bertoia, Lockheed, Towers and Parabaloid, are heard on this new CD. Smith is also an accomplished steel guitarist and performs on two of the tracks. Chas Smith follows in the footsteps of pioneer Harry Partch and others who have conceived, designed and built their own instruments in order to realize a unique musical vision.

What does all this sound like? The press release declares that Three evokes “…a world of expansive musical tapestries, carefully woven textures, that evolve via slow, constant processes of change.” All of the tracks share a common form: an ambient cloud of sound, always in slow motion and subtly changing its emotional coloring.

Distance, the first track, opens with a buzzing and zooming sound while a sustained musical tone enters underneath. There are a variety of sounds present, but they all work together with exceptional coherence to create a warm glow. There is a sense of movement and power in lower registers that quietly rises and falls, as if passing by the listener at a distance. A low humming, like the beating of a multi-engine propeller aircraft is suggested, but this never dominates. No fewer than seven of Smith’s sonic sculptures and his steel guitar are included on this piece, yet these elements are perfectly realized and artfully mixed; they are always musical yet never lose their suggestion of the mechanical. The sounds are consistently engaging, but raise no expectations through tension and release. In the last two minutes bass pedal tones predominate, gradually reducing the sensation of movement and power as Distance fades to a deep finish, completing a captivating journey.

The Replicant, track 2, has a very different feel, starting with a deep, spacey sound that carries a mysterious, alien coolness and a sense of vast emptiness. There are artful combinations of musical tones and steely sounds, but in this piece a greater contrast is heard with the mechanical, now mostly in the foreground. Steely sounds in the middle registers seem to quiver like long, vibrating rods. Chimes are also heard, slightly less resonant than, say, church tower bells, but still well-shaped and full of presence. At about seven minutes in, deep, throbbing bass tones are heard, like the snoring of some great sleeping beast. As the piece proceeds, the texture is consistently rich but always changing on its surface. There is a gradual decrescendo in the final stages, as if we are slipping away in a dream.

The Replicant clearly features the mechanical sounds more prominently and while they often dominate, they are never intimidating. Smith’s realizations occupy a perfect middle ground between sound and music in the listener’s brain, and this works to expand one’s aural perception. Beautifully mixed and processed, The Replicant beguiles and engages.

The final track is The End of Cognizance and this acts as a summing up of all the sounds heard on this album. The structure is similar to the earlier tracks, but fewer of Smith’s sound sculptures are included. The End of Cognizance has an upward-looking feel, managing to be simultaneously introspective and optimistic. Bright, mechanical chiming dominates, especially in the upper registers, with continuous tones accompanying in the bass. The experience resembles being inside a large wind-up clock and the mechanical undercurrent is artfully combined with the sunny sounds of the chimes. As this piece proceeds, a soft growling is heard in the deep registers as the metallic sounds become lower in pitch, darker and more ominous. An increase in the harsher metallic sounds soon overtakes the more musical elements below. By 10:00 all this attains an intent that now feels malevolent. At about 14:40, several higher pitched chimes are heard, solitary and spaced out, like welcome beacons of hope shining forth from the gathering gloom. The chimes descend again to the lower registers, like the sinking of a ship, with a long decrescendo and the thinning of texture until the piece fades to a finish.

The End of Cognizance, as with the other tracks, is masterfully realized and brings beauty to the ear. The mix of musical and mechanically generated sound is seamless. The recording was by Chas Smith in his studio at Grass Valley and the mastering by Scott Fraser in Los Angeles – and the results are truly impressive. Three achieves a level of integration between the sound sculptures and a steel guitar that reach out to new musical horizons. We can all look forward to hearing more from Grass Valley.

Three is available directly from Cold Blue Music, Amazon and numerous CD retailers.

by Paul Muller
Best of, CD Review, Composers, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Best of 2021: Christian Baldini Conducts UC Davis Symphony (CD Review)

Best of 2021: Varèse, Ligeti, Lutosławski, Baldini on Centaur 

Varèse, Ligeti, Lutosławski, Baldini

Munich Radio Orchestra; UC Davis Symphony Orchestra

Miranda Cuckson, violin; Maximilian Haft, violin

Christian Baldini, conductor

Centaur Records CD/DL

 

Conductor and composer Christian Baldini is making a name for himself on the West Coast, where he directs the UC Davis Orchestra and is a frequent guest conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, as well as abroad with a number of orchestras and opera companies. This Centaur CD features live performances of three pivotal European modernist works, as well as a piece by Baldini that negotiates similar territory. 

 

In Elapsing Twilight Shades, Baldini considers several complexes of gestures and harmonies, allowing them to slowly morph, to his mind much like the changing light at the end of the day. Elapsing Twilight Shades is an excellent curtain raiser for the program to follow. The piece alludes to the percussion writing of Varèse as well as angularity evocative of Lutosławski. Baldini is a true double threat conductor-composer. 

 

Currently pursuing doctoral studies at University of Leiden, violinist Maximilian Haft also has a California connection; he studied at the San Francisco Conservatory’s pre-college division. Chain II, completed in 1985 by Witold Lutosławski, is a prominent example of the exploration of limited aleatory in a large symphonic work. Each of the three movements is split into two demeanors, with passages that are meant to be played freely and others that adhere strictly to the beat. Haft renders the freer passages zestfully and his playing elsewhere demonstrates razor sharp focus. UC Davis Symphony Orchestra makes a strong impression in their collaboration with Baldini, playing with intensity and control in this considerably challenging work. Their playing is similarly distinguished in Ameriques by Edgard Varèse, a monolithic example from a composer who played a pivotal role in modernizing the orchestra. 

 

Győrgy Ligeti’s Violin Concerto, completed in 1993, was one of his most significant late works. In it, he explored his interests in microtonal tunings, folk dance rhythms, older forms such as Medieval hockets and Renaissance passacaglias, and unorthodox instrumentation (the winds double ocarinas) and playing techniques. The language moves between tonal (often modal) reference points and post-tonal construction. This may sound like quite an amalgam to navigate, but it is achieved with abundant success. Violinist Miranda Cuckson is a superlative interpreter of contemporary concert music, and she delivers a memorable rendition of concerto, with tremendous sensitivity to tuning and balance, authoritative command of challenging solos, and a dramatic portrayal of its narrative arc. Once again, Baldini proves an excellent partner, eliciting a tightly detailed performance from the UC Davis Symphony while giving Cuckson interpretive space as well. The performance of the cadenza displayed some of the violinist’s creativity. Cuckson started with four lines of the original version, composed with input from the concerto’s dedicatee Saschko Gawriloff, then continued with cadenza material she wrote herself. 

 

A cohesive and valuable program with fine performances of every work, this CD is one of our Best of 2021. Moreover, it puts UC Davis Symphony and Baldini on the map as performers of contemporary concert music to watch closely. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Best of 2021: Andrew Cyrille Quartet (CD Review)

Best of 2021

Andrew Cyrille Quartet

The News 

ECM Records

David Virelles, piano; Bill Frisell, guitar; Ben Street, bass; Andrew Cyrille, drums and percussion

 

Andrew Cyrille is now an octogenarian, an age at which many musicians have already retired or are slowing down. Cyrille retains a superlative technique and while his latest quartet outing for ECM, The News, emphasizes interplay and texture over power, it is clear that there is much of that yet remaining in the drummer’s arsenal as well. 

 

Cyrille is credited with three of the compositions on The News. The title track was originally a solo percussion piece. Recast for the quartet, it is the most experimental sounding piece on the album. David Virelles plays synth as well as his usual instrument, the piano, Ben Street plays the bass both arco and pizzicato, guitarist Bill Frisell daubs dissonance and darting linear flurries here and there, and Cyrille employs a number of drums and percussion instruments in a spell binding, unorthodox fashion. The drummer places newspaper over the snare and toms and plays with brushes: an intriguing timbral choice. “The Dance of the Nuances,” co-authored by Cyrille with the group’s pianist David Virelles, features bowed bass and single line solos punctuated by Cyrille’s syncopated drumming.

 

Three pieces are credited to Frisell. “Go Happy Lucky” is a mid tempo blues bounce that is jubilant in tone. Frisell plays the head and the first solo section in jaunty fashion, followed by succulent arpeggiations  from Virelles. Cyrille’s drumming is propulsive and responsive to the melodic gestures of the soloists. Street plays walking lines that lead to the return of the head, this time with the whole group digging in and matching Frisell. “The Mountain” begins with a simple melody and chord progression played by Frisell. Gradually, it becomes more chromatic and embellished as Virelles and Street push the guitarist’s material outside. Cyrille adds a counter rhythm that also complicates the piece’s surface. “Baby” is one of Frisell’s pastoral Americana style pieces. His honeyed melody is supplied counterpoint by Street, Fender Rhodes comping from Virelles, and subdued drumming by Cyrille. Virelles contributes the composition “Incienso,” which has an ambling melody and an intricate chord structure filled with Brazilian allusions and polytonal reference points. 

 

The one piece used by a musician outside the group is “Leaving East of Java” by Steve Colson. This is a felicitous inclusion. A performer, composer, and educator, it is unfortunate that Colson’s work isn’t better known today. “Leaving East of Java” includes guitar and piano in octaves and intricate chords rolled by Virelles. Synthetic scales evoke the exoticism, if not the specific content, of Javanese gamelan. Partway through, Street takes a suave solo succeeded by florid playing from Frisell and a repeated riff from Virelles. The pianist then plummets into the bass register, placing quick scalar passages underneath Street’s legato playing. The octaves return briefly to punctuate the piece’s close. 

 

The final composition, “With You in Mind” by Cyrille, features the drummer intoning a spoken word introduction of an original poem. The main section of the piece starts as a duo, with Virelles and Street creating a gently lilting ambience with traditional harmonies and rhythmic gestures that reflect the poetry (it would be great to see this poem set with the tune for singers). A piquant piano chord invites Frisell and Virelles to join the proceedings, with the guitarist creating an arrangement of the tune with chordal embellishments and Cyrille imparting the time with graceful poise. It ends in a whorl of chordal extensions and soft cymbal sizzle. 

 

Jazz players and audiences alike are often seeking “new standards” to canonize. There are several tunes here that qualify. The News is one of our Best of 2021 recordings. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Best of 2021: Spektral Quartet Plays Thorvaldsdottir (CD Review)

Anna Thorvaldsdottir

Enigma EP

Spektral Quartet Clara Lyon, Maeve Feinberg, violin; Doyle Armbrust, viola; Russell Rolen, cello

Sono Luminus CD, 2021

 

Enigma, the first string quartet by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir, arrives after a spate of engaging chamber works that have often featured strings, but never in this most traditional configuration. The piece has essentially two very different experiences to offer to the listener. The one considered here is a well engineered CD recording with detailed antiphony that gives a sense of the spatial dimensions of Enigma’s live incarnation, a multimedia work in a 360 degree full-dome theater space, with visuals provided by Sigurdur Gudjonsson. Premiered at the Kennedy Center and co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Enigma is likely to have audiences on the edge of their seats. 

 

In her informative program note, Thorvaldsdottir indicates that the piece is about both microcosmic and macrocosmic levels. This is an ideal vantage point from which to consider Engima. The composer is well versed in advanced string techniques. The granularity of details such as microtones, harmonics, and bow pressure, are nested in sweeping modal harmony. The first movement reveals these details gradually. 

 

Glissandos, especially the gull’s cry effect,  announce the second movement,  to which are added pizzicato and angular gestures to give the underlying grid a nudge in tempo. Grinding bow pressure and a fleet viola solo yield to the modal bass register harmonies found in the previous movement,  a more subdued return to harmonics and pizzicato, and then an addition of  sepulchral octaves paired with the return of the viola’s solo. Cluster chords and a narrow melody ratchet up the intensity against insistent bass octaves to close.

 

The final movement overlaps glissandos and harmonics to create an altissimo register colloquy only occasionally interrupted by the cello in the bass register, playing a skeleton of the first movement’s harmony. Gradually, the registers are filled in and a keening melody announces the return of the modal harmony first revealed in the opening. There are slow percussive blows that articulate a polyrhythmic grid and a subtle underpinning of bow pressure that provides another articulation. A descending line joins the microtonally tuned violin solo, providing tangy dissonance against the harmonic ground beneath. Synthetic scales then provide dissonances and augmented seconds that alter the mode (a nod to the title, it is perhaps the most enigmatic turn in the piece). Solo harmonics then outline the harmony and repeated notes create a fadeout to close the work. 

 

The Spektral Quartet performs both the micro and macro levels of the piece with an admirable sense of pacing and keen attention to detail. Enigma is our first Best of 2021 pick.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?

Bernhard Lang – Piano Music (CD Review)

Bernhard Lang

Piano Music

Wolfram Oettl, piano

Kairos Music CD

 

Bernhard Lang (b. 1957) writes in a number of different media, from chamber music to theatre works. His solo piano music is reflective of the composer’s omnivorous interest in various musical styles and his adroit sense of scoring, which allows the piano to have an orchestral impact in the two multi-movement works on his latest Kairos CD. 

 

In liner notes for the CD, Lang remarks that he is interested in free improvisation and DJ electronica as well as contemporary concert music. One can hear this in the angular digressions and motoric rhythms that populate his piece Monadologie V: Seven Last Words of Hasan (2008-2009). The introduction’s use of off-kilter repetition, the stentorian attacks on a single sonority in the piece’s second movement, Hodie mecum eris in Paradisum, and the looping arpeggiations in its fifth movement finale, all reflect an interest in uneven reiterations. Looking a little deeper underneath the surface, Lang  marries these rhythms with disparate harmonic languages. The introduction features Eastern modal writing, the third Messiaen-like color chords, and the finale co-opts post-minimalism a là John Adams. An average composer might be able to juxtapose these elements without harming the end result, but Lang is anything but average in his conception of Monadologie V, in which the traversal of “cellular automata processes” is unified by cohesive formal organization designed from Franz Joseph Haydn’s Seven Last Words from the Cross. While it coheres around Seven Last Words, the piece reacts to rather than merely mimics the original Haydn work. I am not familiar with the other Monadologie pieces, and look forward to tracking them down. 

 

The recording also includes three Intermezzi (written in 2015-2016). The use of “cellular automata processes” persists here. Instead of Haydn, some of the material deals with the figuration, metric evasions, and elusive harmonic progressions of Johannes Brahms, only fitting given his predilection for writing intermezzi as well. The spontaneity of these pieces is not happenstance. According to Lang, the first Intermezzo was entirely improvised “on a gray afternoon.” Another aspect of Lang’s musicianship, his experience as a jazz pianist, takes a role here, with extended tertian sonorities and biting seconds reminiscent of bebop. Bebop plus Brahms? Entirely plausible in Lang’s musical output. The second and third intermezzi use algorithms built from the first to develop organically related, yet disparate creations. Intermezzo 2, Abstract Machines 1, plays with strands of whole-tone scales stacked with dissonant seconds. It is like a broken crank, a bumptious deployment of the verticals from the first intermezzo in relentless fashion. In the third intermezzo, an adagio, Lang arpeggiates the original harmony, blurring offbeat treble dissonances. 

 

Those skeptical of the yin-yang of human improvisation and algorithmic composition would do well to attend to these works, which use both techniques quite successfully.

 

-Christian Carey

 

An interview with Bernhard Lang:

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Nite Jewel’s No Sun (CD Review

Nite Jewel

No Sun

Gloriette LP/DL

 

How closely does art imitate life and vice versa? It is a question that has been debated since antiquity. Ramona Gonzalez, who records as Nite Jewel, provides an offering that serves to revive the debate. Nite Jewel has released No Sun, her first full length in four years, on her own imprint, Gloriette. It explores mourning and loss. Not so coincidentally, Gonzalez is researching those same themes in her graduate work in musicology at UCLA: women performing mourning songs and rituals. Another wrinkle is that Gonzalez has reason for grief in her own personal life, having recently come to the end of a twelve year long marriage. As she has remarked, grieving plus (synth) pop creates an interesting character: a diva who is a professional mourner. 

 

Gonzalez is one of a number of synth artists recently who have pursued their craft and kept their day jobs in academe. She teaches music technology and songwriting. One of the other members of the graduate student cohort in musicology at UCLA is electronic recording artist Sarah Davachi. Gonzalez’s frequent collaborator Julia Holter, who plays synthesizer on No Sun, did her graduate work at CalArts. Their respective training has helped to make their music sophisticated while sacrificing none of the immediacy and memorability one craves in pop songcraft. 

 

No Sun contains eight songs, a number at the usual three minute length and a few that stretch out. One clocking in at over seven minutes is “Anymore,” which has a mid-tempo pulsation throughout. Added to this is a gradual layering of voices and synthesizers, periodically moving us to double time percussion and then back to the medium groove and from a lilting vocal melody to walls of complex backing vocals. Synths send the harmony sidewise while a bass line is evasive in its punctuations. Partway through it deconstructs down to the solo vocal a cappella before rebuilding the layers with the voice slowly receding into the rest of the arrangement, making the isolation of its lyrics explicit, and then once more dropping everything but the voice, making aloneness even more overt. 

 

“No Escape” plays with different types of bass-lines and kaleidoscopic synthesizers. The song is propelled by Cory Fogel’s percussion. Gonzalez’s double-tracked vocals evince particular passion here. “This Time” features an honest to goodness extended solo section as an outro, with Corey Lee Granit laying down squalling guitar riffs.Here, as elsewhere, Nite Jewel is unafraid to lean in and encourage arrangements that reassemble past tropes of pop. Fogel guests again on “Show Me What You’re Made Of,” as does Julia Holter, who contributes additional synthesizers. Supple voice, corruscated bass and drums, and slowly articulated synth chords all move at different rates, making a polyphonic rhythmic scheme that grooves but requires more than just head bobbing to express. In a hat tip to the album title, Gonzalez covers Sun Ra’s “When There is No Sun,” in a six-minute version that combines electric piano sounds, grainy bass, and soulful singing: a most successful interpretation. 

 

Those aforementioned three-minute songs are imaginative, tuneful, and expressive. “Before I Go” allows Gonzalez to play with space in the arrangement, into which she pours singing of a more bluesy cast than elsewhere.  Brian Allen Simon supplies saxophones on “#14,” with undulating melodies reminiscent of Branford Marsalis’s playing on “The Dream of the Blue Turtles.” “To Feel It” has an angular yet catchy vocal melody, a disco chord progression rife with ninth chords, and a syncopated electronic rhythm section. If there is a breakout song among those on No Sun, this is it. One hopes it will vaunt all the attractive material arrayed here to greater attention.

 

-Christian Carey  

 

 

by Christian Carey