Category: Tracks

You can take the listener anywhere, you just have to be sure you’ve given him something to hold onto. I don’t know who first said that, or in what context. And it might be one of those “somethings” that’s different for everyone and that you only recognize when you hear it. Robert Carl’s Open for string trio does it for me, though. At the outset I have no idea where the path is leading, but throughout the three sections (played more or less straight through with only the briefest pauses) there seems to be a sonic banister under my left hand that assures I won’t get lost or left behind along the way. His writing fits in my ear, even when it surprises me. And in spite of the work’s title and the expansive glissandi that are especially pronounced in the opening section, there’s something big and emotional that wraps itself around and creates a shelter in which to listen.

–MS

Imagine having your master’s thesis in composition personally commissioned by a top international soloist and then released on that same soloist’s latest CD. That’s exactly what happened with Clarice Assad’s Violin Concerto, which was submitted in fulfillment of a composition degree at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The soloist in this instance is Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, who pairs Assad’s new work with one of the most celebrated violin concertos of all time, the Tchaikovsky, which she has surprisingly never before committed to disc. It’s an extremely tough act for anyone to follow, whether a grad student or a Pulitzer Prize winner, but Assad’s sometimes Zappa-esque and occasionally castanet-filled, Latin-tinged opus—she is, after all, the daughter of Brazilian guitar master Sergio Assad—proves an exciting complement to its older, more European-sounding companion.

–FJO

I’m a little bit Scelsi. And I’m a little bit Persian folk music in fugal counterpoint. That’s the message Reza Vali’s second string quartet belts out, more expressively than any Osmond family member could ever dream. Melodic lines run from utterly rapturous arcs to nail-biting microtonal collisions. I have to admit that even for someone as jaded as me, I found myself enjoying the sometimes dance-like flavor of this half an hour exotic journey. Please excuse me now; I’m craving some fesenjaan.

–RN

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note up front that I don’t think Ingram Marshall has written a piece of music that I didn’t feel attached to in some way. Just as there are authors who never seem to write a line I don’t enjoy and painters who always intrigue my eye, Marshall can stretch himself many different ways musically, and I enjoy following along for what the ride might offer. In this case, several elements meet to create an especially striking sonic experience—sacred and secular texts set to recall tradition while sounding fresh, the striking performance from the Tudor Choir accompanied by an electronic track with violin and viola obbligato, all recorded live in a cathedral in Seattle. Maybe in the current political climate it means even more if you know the composer was influenced by the First Gulf War, but then again, maybe the specifics don’t matter. The title references a battle in the Roman campaigns against the German tribes. Marshall’s piece is presented to a modern world that still turns often to war, and maybe the reminder of that past horror (…hard by lay splintered spears and limbs of horses, while human skulls were nailed prominently on tree trunks…) and well as the eventually found peace (…no man knew whether he consigned to earth the remains of a stranger or a kinsman, but all thought of all as friends and members of one family…) is the truer necessity.

–MS

An American art song sung in Yiddish!? Sounds like it could be the punchline of an early Woody Allen stand-up routine, but the work of Lazar Weiner (1897-1982) makes a serious and compelling case for an unlikely geographical reality. According to the Milken Archive’s thorough booklet notes, Weiner’s devotion to Yiddish poetry was a result of his discovery of it after arriving in America. The tunefulness and lush harmonies of his 1939 song “Yosl Klezmer,” in particular, show just how effective a muse these poems can be. And, in the voice of Rafael Frieder and the hands of pianist Yehudi Wyner, a famous composer in his own right who also happens to be Weiner’s son, this song has the ideal interpreters.

–FJO

Prog rock goes back to the future with a synth-laden big band sound backed by a rock steady beat and some fancy chord changes. But these aren’t your regular ol’ keyboard-driven synthesizers. Electropolis features wired winds: electrumpet and electrosax. No explanation is provided—liner notes are absent—but you can instantly hear what these plugged-in hybrids are capable of throughout this self-titled debut. Think grungy, distorted electric guitar with a vulnerable edge, personalized by breath, lips, and reeds.

–RN

Do you remember those jewelry boxes for little girls that featured a small plastic ballerina which popped up and twirled steadily before a gilt-edged mirror until the lid was shut again? If it’s where you kept your sparkly treasures, be prepared for a flashback as Peter Griggs’s Through the Looking Glass unfolds. The music of Indonesia has served as a pinnacle of the exotic in the ethnomusicology departments of countless American universities, but the gamelan construction presented in Through the Looking Glass—two groups of identical instruments playing melodic figures in canon—is lovely and affecting in ways that can exist independently of the music’s heritage. The listener, invited to meditatively let go in the cyclic metallic hammering, might just as easily wander down paths close to home as be carried across oceans. Griggs’s work takes me back to childhood, when glittery pieces of cut glass stood in for the glamour of an adult world we did not comprehend.

–MS

While almost every music critic in the biz as well as the folks who adjudicate the Grammy Awards were overjoyed about the CD release of Bill Bolcom’s massive Songs of Innocence and of Experience, I’m even more thrilled to see his four sonatas for violin and piano finally made available on a single, complete, and authoritative recording. The four works, which span most of the second half of the 20th century (1956 to 1994, to be precise), offer all of Bolcom’s polystylistic gambits, but the consistency of the timbral combination of violin and piano makes the inter-relativity of his disparate influences all the more seamless. Perhaps singling out a snippet from just one movement here doesn’t demonstrate how effective these juxtapositions are in an audibly convincing way, but nevertheless “In Memory of Joe Venuti,” which effortlessly morphs from an atonal figuration to a salsa charanga and back without skipping a beat, should give you some idea.

–FJO

The almost cute amoeba-cum-paisley, sea urchin-esk cover art is the first clue that you’re about to enter an altered state. Emily Hay is your wordless tour guide, scatting and blabbering, sometimes laughing her way through her prepared remarks about the landscape, points of interest, and tourist traps. This is the album Björk would make if she had the gumption. Too late now, Hay and percussionist Marcos Fernandes already beat her to the punch with the drifty We Are. After a listen to the disc’s title track alone, you’ll be left wondering how on earth the pair manages to pack such breadth into six minutes. There’s no doubt their creativity is far from drying up.

–RN

I’m not sure why Francisco Pais feels compelled to hide from his listeners. He’s got his back to us in the CD case photo, and a booklet image finds him peeking out from behind his guitar—just a bit of nose and two eyes. Even more significantly in the music on his recent Fresh Sounds/New Talent release, he keeps himself down in the mix. In may be the Francisco Pais Quintet, but musically they all get equal time and attention.

I’m a fan of the ensemble feel this arrangement allows. The opening track, Water From the Moon, shows off the range of exploration this set-up allows a jazz group unhampered by the need to wait while each guy takes a solo. Instead the group can move and develop the work en masse, a striking idea or a well-played riff serving as a spice rather than a stand-alone course. Now Francisco, come out from there, at least to take a bow.

–MS