Wolfgang Muthspiel - Driftwood (2014)

Sublime guitar trio date recorded in May 2013, led by Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel.  Bookended by tributes to two formative influences, Joseph (Zawinul) and Bossa For Michael Brecker, all the material is Muthspiel's other than the group-composed title track.  It's a highly enjoyable and varied set of eight tracks in a trim 41 minutes, often prioritising texture and ambience.  Dazzling runs of notes share the space with plenty of breathing room, Larry Grenadier undepins it with both rock solid basslines and melancholy bowing, and Brian Blade on drums keeps structure and momentum to this great set of impressionistic pieces.

link

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Previously posted at SGTG:

Travel Guide (with Ralph Towner & Slava Grigoryan)

Momo Kodama - La Vallée Des Cloches (Ravel, Takemitsu & Messiaen) (2013)

Sticking with ECM and classical today for some incredible 20th century piano music, played by Osaka-born pianist Momo Kodama.  Maurice Ravel's Miroirs suite is rendered in all its tricksy, impressionistic wonder with crystal clarity, with Kodama's rendering of Une barque sur l'ocean (one of my favourite piano pieces of all time, which made me buy this album) capturing the delicacy of every lapping wave.  The other substanital work on the album is Olivier Messiaen's birdsong catalogue La Fauvette Des Jardins, evoking a garden-warbler and several other birds on a midsummer's night, and as a bridge between the two French masters Kodoma plays Rain Tree Sketch by Toru Takemitsu, chosen for its interesting similarities to the other composers.

link

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Ravel at SGTG:

Alborada Del Gracioso arranged for marimba duo

Takemitsu at SGTG:

Asterism, Requiem, Green, The Dorian Horizon

November Steps

Messiaen at SGTG:

Quatre Études De Rythme
Des Canyons Aux Étoiles
Turangalîla Symphony / Quatour Pour La Fin Du Temps (EMI recordings cond. by Rattle)
Turangalîla Symphony / L'ascension (Naxos recording cond. by Wit)
Et Exspecto Ressurrectionem (Philips recording cond. by Haitink)
Et Exspecto Resurrectionem (Erato recording cond. by Boulez), etc

Éclairs Sur L’Au-Delà...

Tigran Hamasyan, Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset, Jan Bang ‎- Atmosphères (2016)

Double album of atmospheric improvisations / ambient jazz / just great music, from the combination of four of ECM's most interesting latter-day musicians.  Armenian pianist Hamasyan was joined for this three-day recording session in Italy by Norwegians Henrisken on trumpet, Aarset on guitar/electronics, and Bang on electronics/sampling.

The backbone of Atmosphères is the ten-part Traces suite, with a handful of compositions by Hamasyan's national legend Komitas threaded through it.  With no drummer, and the suite only occasionally catching fire (such as Parts 2 and 7), the main mode of expression is free-floating, wispy ambience.  I remember buying Atmosphères on its release, and taking a while to really warm to it - but it's well worth sticking with, everything here equally rewards background listening or close attention.

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

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Tigran Hamasyan at SGTG:

Luys I Luso

Eivind Aarset & Jan Bang at SGTG:

Dream Logic

Pink Freud - Pink Freud Plays Autechre (2015)

Live album by Polish yass group from Gdansk - and yep, as per the album title and cover, every track is a rendering of an Autechre piece, performed by a jazz quartet with additional electronics.  This followed on from an earlier cover of Goz Quarter on Pink Freud's 2010 album Monster Of Jazz - bassist and bandleader Wojtek Mazolewski is a huge fan of Autechre, and described this project as the realisation of a dream.  Eight tracks written by the IDM duo whizz by with not much in the way of improvisation, but tons of energy making for an exhilarating set.  Can't fault this for being a unique idea that just kind of works in its own weird way.

 

link

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The actual Autechre at SGTG:

Confield

Oversteps

Reinhold Friedl / Zeitkratzer - Kore (2016)

German new music ensemble Zeitkratzer were previously featured here tackling early Kraftwerk - see link below.  Here they perform a work composed by their director Reinhold Friedl, which he created as a homage to Iannis Xenakis - always good news to my ears. With Zeitkratzer having already tackled Xenakis in the past, they perform this noisy tribute with aplomb.

Kore is a 53-minute work in four continuous sections, scored for six amplified wind and string instruments plus piano and guitar, and was recorded live in Hamburg in January 2013.  Straight away the Xenakian roar of works like Persepolis comes to mind, as well, as the queasy, slippery strings of his work in that format.  The second (and initially the third) sections are only slightly more restrained, and the remainder picks up the intensity again, like towards the end of La Légende D'Eer, before dropping away to an eerie finale.  The close-miked instrumentation and high-quality sound allow for microscopic detail as well as the thrill of the full-on sonic assault, and the whole composition is a worthy homage whilst displaying the power and intensity of Friedl and his ensemble.

link

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Zeitkratzer at SGTG:

Zeitkratzer plays Kraftwerk (live 2017)

Ricardo Villalobos - Dependent And Happy (2012)

Ear-bending, trippy minimal techno from the master.  When first released, Dependent And Happy took the form of two and a half hours of music across twelve sides of vinyl; shortly afterwards, 11 of the 14 tracks were mixed down into this fully-segued 78 minute CD.  Airy, atmospheric and never boring even when it seems there's very little going on, this is expertly-produced electronic music that suits any level of concentration.  Traffic sounds, odd voices, minute variations in the drum tracks and more keep offering a fresh experience no matter how many times you return to it.

link

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Ricardo Villalobos at SGTG:

Fizheuer Zieheuer

Vasco

Re: ECM

Safe In Harbour

Carla Bley, Andy Sheppard & Steve Swallow - Trios (2013)

With the release of Trios, legendary jazz composer Carla Bley finally moved over from Watt, the ECM-distributed label that had released her music for decades, to the Manfred mothership.  This first appearance on ECM tied in with the re-establishment of the Bley-Sheppard-Swallow trio, whose last album in this format had been Songs With Legs in 1994.  They've since released a further two albums.

Trios offered no great surprises in the tracklist, being a Thelonious Monk-like revisitation of earlier compositions.  But like Monk, this just underlines how durable and outstanding Bley's iconoclastic body of work as a writer is.  The three lengthy suites here, with two shorter tracks upfront, might largely date back to the 80s, but they're cast afresh here as gorgeous immersions in sumptuous chamber jazz.  The simple palette of Bley's piano, Swallow's nimble bass guitar and Sheppard's breathy sax make for nothing short of a masterpiece that lets the strength of the writing and playing stand centre stage, and is a delight to return to over and over.

link

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Carla Bley at SGTG:

The Jazz Composers Orchestra

Fleur Carnivore

Appearing Nightly

The Hilliard Ensemble - Transeamus (2014)

Sticking with vocal music today, but slimming down from full choir to a distinguished quartet.  The Hilliards drew their forty-year career to a sublime close with this album, giving it a fitting title alluding to travelling on.  Conceived as a return to their roots, the album is a programme of English motets and carols from the 15th century, with only four composers known for sure, the rest anonymous.  As expected from this esteemed ensemble, all of these fourteen pieces are deftly performed, starkly beautiful and perfectly captured in the ambience of the St. Gerold monastery in the Alps.  Relax and enjoy an hour of pure timeless bliss.

link

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Previously posted at SGTG:

Perotin

The Lamentations Of Jeremiah

Codex Speciálník

The Norwegian Soloists' Choir / Oslo Sinfonietta - As Dreams (2016)

On the album cover above, you can just about make out the full quote from The Tempest that this choral collection takes its name from.  The introduction to the liner notes sets out how these seven pieces are meant to be linked: "they are permeated not only with their own era, but with times that we can imagine lie in front of us."  The five composers chosen are all known for their transformative, spellbinding sound, and make for a bewitching hour of choral music, sometimes accompanied, sometimes acapella.

The two works by Per Nørgård that make up a third of the runtime are my definite favourites here.  His Drømmesange (Dream Songs), with the choir accompanied by steady percussion, is an accessible start to the programme, with its gently lilting, folky melodies; Singe die Gärten, mein Herz is taken from his 3rd Symphony.  From there, there's a good mix of shimmering, atmospheric material (Alfred Janson's Nocturne; Kaija Saariaho's Überzeugung) and more avant-garde ventures into fractured phonemes (Helmut Lachenmann's Consolation II, Iannis Xenakis' Nuits and the closing Nuits, Adieux by Saariaho).  A highly recommended immersion in 20th-21st century choral music.

link

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Max Richter - Voices (broadcast premiere) & Infra (recorded live, 10 Dec 2020)

Another concert broadcast, this time bang up to date with a special international simulcast last Thursday for Human Rights Day.  Max Richter's new work Voices uses as its narration parts of the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and this live recording took place in London's Maida Vale Studios.

First up is a condensed version (only two of the linking "Journey" segments are performed) of Richter's 2010 work Infra, written in memory of the 7/7 attacks on London in 2005.  With just strings, piano and electronics, it's a lovely stark and sombre experience that sets the stage for the main event.

Voices is also condensed, but only in its instrumental forces compared to the album version - all ten parts of the work are performed.  The aforementioned narration is also joined by crowdsourced samples of people reading extracts of the Declaration in different languages, and the instrumentation is again based on strings, solo violin and piano.  This is fleshed out by wordless choral voices and a soprano part (the lengthy Chorale is a definite highlight), and other sampled environmental sounds.  Richter in the preamble discussion notes the influence of Schubert, particularly Winterreisse, but the gentle, accessible mode of expression is recognisably Richter.

After the performance, the broadcast continued with Richter introducing half an hour of music that has inspired him.  I've left this in, as they were all great choices: Bob Dylan, Thomas Tallis, Abdullah Ibrahim (aka Dollar Brand), Kraftwerk and Charles Ives.

link

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Previously posted at SGTG: Sleep

James MacMillan - Seven Last Words From The Cross / Veni, Veni, Emmanuel (2019)

Concert recording from February 2019, in which Scottish composer Sir James MacMillan celebrated his 60th birthday conducting two of his major works with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and percussionist Colin Currie, who's made a couple of appearances on these pages before.  As a prelude to his own music, MacMillan chose Arvo Pärt's Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten, with its solemn bell tolls caught up in the swirl of the gorgeous orchestral parts.

Veni, Veni, Emmanuel (1992) is based on a plainchant piece that bears that name, and it's a percussion concerto originally written for another Scottish player, Evelyn Glennie.  Currie here describes his extensive percussion rig and the various voices used throughout the piece, then turns in a storming performance.  The propulsive energy of the work reminded me in places of Steve Martland.  The second half of the concert is given over to MacMillan's epic cantata Seven Last Words From The Cross, commissioned by the BBC in 1994.  In its sections, the work covers the gospel texts tackled by numerous other composers over the centuries - Sofia Gubaidulina is one who's appeared here - and is a stirring, engrossing journey.

link

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Aaron Parks - Arborescence (2013)

Mentioned this album when recounting the chance meeting of Aaron Parks and Yeahwon Shin that led to Lua Ya, so about time I posted it.  Arborescence was the second appearance on ECM (Lua Ya came out a few months before it) for Parks, born 1983 in Seattle, and his first album of solo piano.  It's an impressionistic, highly evocative set of improvisation-composition pianism, that almost seems to unfold like a forest-reverie concept album.  The album title feeds down into the track titles that start with Asleep In The Forest, Towards Awakening and so on, with later tracks named Squirrels, Branches and River Ways.

Parks' style occasionally bringing Keith Jarrett to mind in the way that some of the initially hesitant sounding tracks unfold, and spin off from jazz, blues and Satie-era classical music.  Arborescence is a gorgeous collection of pieces that are endlessly enjoyable, and mostly mellow and reflective.  The most the temperature gets raised is in the rolling arpeggios of In Pursuit, and in the brief, jittery movements of Squirrels.  Beautiful stuff.

link

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Geoff Sample - Bird Songs & Calls (2010)

Bought this little book and accompanying triple-CD set from a closedown sale in a popup bookstore a few years back, and didn't give it much attention until recently when I felt like listening to something a bit different.  Ripped the discs - 229 tracks over three and a half hours, that's got to be a record for this blog! - and gave it a listen; then decided it was definitely worth sharing.

Geoff Sample is an English naturalist/ornithologist/sound recordist who's been releasing CDs of birdsong going back to the 90s, and also pops up on BBC radio programmes now and then with some of his recordings.  Here, he narrates the songs and calls of British birds grouped into their habitats, spending about ten to fifteen minutes in each section: House & Garden, Farmland, Hedges & Scrub and so on, all the way through to Rocky Coast.  The third CD is different - it's a guide to recognising bird song, from the simplest to the more complicated.  The book cross-references the CD tracks with brief descriptions of each bird, its migratory patterns, when best to find it etc.

The two main CDs are a really enjoyable listen - the various bird sounds, coupled with Sample's unobtrusive narration in the pleasant burr of his Northumbrian accent, actually make the first disc in particular a quite relaxing experience.  The second CD maybe not so much - some of these feathered performers are loud!  Nevertheless the whole thing is a very well put together, great-sounding immersion in birdsong.

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

Disc 3 link

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Jóhann Jóhannsson - Orphée (2016)

Jóhann Jóhannsson's move to the distinguished ranks of Deutsche Grammophon for his first studio album in a few years was meant to start a new chapter in his career as a modern composer.  Instead, it was a coda - after only a couple more soundtrack releases, he suddenly died aged just 48.  The wintry, elegaic tones of Orphée, inspired by Jean Cocteau's film of the same name and the myth of Orpheus it was based on, took on an even more sombre air in hindsight.

It's a beautiful album, with 15 short tracks (only two breaking the four-minute mark) built on simple materials for maximum melancholy and atmosphere.  Given Jóhannsson's considerable body of soundtrack work beforehand, it's perhaps no surprise that some of this music sounds particularly filmic, especially the opening Flight From The City with its piano motif gradually built upon.  Several tracks are centred around strings, and little production touches like understated electronics and effects, and the ghostly radio samples of a "numbers station" add variety.  Then all instrumentation is absent for the sublime closing track, performed by acapella choir.

link

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Previously posted at SGTG: Fordlandia

Scott Walker - Scott 3 & Scott 4 (1969) plus BBC Proms Tribute 2017

These two classic albums from 1969, plus Scott Walker's wider discography, always find regular rotation in my listening habits in the last couple of months of the year, so here's some long overdue posting of Scott 3 & 4 - with a bonus tribute concert from three years ago.

By the time the 60s entered its final year, the former Walker Brothers idol had released two solo records of increasingly ambitious songwriting and arrangement, his own songs dotted between covers notably by Jacques Brel.  For Scott 3, the three Brel covers were placed right at the end of the album, leaving the rest to his most mature songwriting yet, including timeless classics like Copenhagen and Rosemary.  Wally Stott's string arrangements were still sumptuous and classy, but the dissonant drone at the album's outset pointed to even more ambitious music to come.

Walker released no less than three albums in 1969, the second being a contractual commitment to his TV show - but he was saving his own material for his masterpiece.  Originally released under his birth name of Engel, and probably sinking without trace for that reason on initial release, Scott 4 was Walker's first release of all-original material.

 

And seriously, what to even write about this clutch of ten songs without a single dud among them.  Starting your record with a setting of Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal to a Morricone-eseque arrangement might seem like an audacious move - following it up with nine more perfect songs with slimmed-down arrangements just makes for one of the greatest albums ever made.  If this post happens to be your first encounter with Scott 4, I envy you beyond description.

Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker is a longtime Scott Walker champion who'd worked with him in 2001, and had taken part in the "Tilting and Drifting" concert at the London Barbican in 2008.  Cocker therefore must've been an obvious choice for this BBC Proms tribute to the 1967-1970 music of Scott, which took place in July 2017.  

 

For this concert, Jarvis was joined by fellow British artist Richard Hawley, US singer-songwriter John Grant, and Susanne Sundfør from Norway.  Each singer takes two songs in the spotlight, and turn about thereafter, all coming together for the closing Get Behind Me.  Providing the sumptuous backing to seventeen of Walker's finest songs are the Heritage Orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley.

Scott 3 link

Scott 4 link

Proms Tribute link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Nite Flights

Climate Of Hunter

Tilt

Soused

Mathias Eick - Midwest (2015)

Third album as leader for Norwegian trumpeter Mathias Eick, and probably one of the finest ECM albums of the last decade.  For me, it gets in to such esteemed company as Wisława for much the same reasons: having an inspired lineup playing at the top of its game on some superb compositions.

Eick's inspiration for this album was a tour of the US where he travelled through the rural Midwest.  Struck by the landscape's resemblance to his native land, he wondered if early Norwegian immigrants to the area had thought the same.  To translate this migratory concept into music, Eick scaled back the more contemporary sound of his breakthrough album Skala, and added folk violinist Gjermund Larsen.

 

The result was an inspired coupling of Eick's lyrical, Chet Baker/Kenny Wheeler inspired melodicism with an earthy folkiness that really makes these wide-open-space melodies stick in your brain, and rewards repeat plays.  Jon Balke's beautifully understated piano and the rhythm section of Mats Eilertsen/Helge Norbakken are the perfect foil to Eick and Larsen's soaring melodies.  Highly recommended.

link

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City Of London Sinfonia/Truro Cathedral Choir - The Fruit Of Silence At Truro Cathedral (2019)

Music of quiet, austere beauty, recorded a year ago this week on a tour by the London Sinfonia.  Whilst exploring the acoustics of some of the UK's legendary cathedrals, they arrived at this Gothic Revival one in Cornwall and were joined by Truro Cathedral Choir.  The ensemble and choir perform at varying locations around the cathedral, to fully exploit its natural resonances.

The programme alternates between choral music and chamber music, taking in 20th and 21st century composers from Peteris Vasks (whose twice-performed piece in different versions gives the concert its title), Eric Whitacre, and Russel Pascoe to John Tavener and Dobrinka Tabakova, whose Centuries Of Meditations suite is the stunning closer (her string quintet Organum Light is another highlight).  Even though he's just represented here by instrumental music, the influence of Arvo Pärt casts a long shadow over all the composers of the choral works.  If you like Pärt, prepare for 70 minutes of heavenly sounds.

link

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Dobrinka Tabakova - String Paths (2013)

Debut album of music by Bulgarian-born, London-based composer Dobrinka Tabakova (b. 1980, Plovdiv).  This superb ECM New Series release focuses on Tabakova's works for strings, written between 2002 and 2008.

First up is Insight, intended to blend the sonorities of a string trio so that they sound like a single instrument - it's a great opener.  Next is a concerto for cello and strings, that emphasises the lead instrument's grounded quality, like "a ship trying to anchor itself".  This is followed by Frozen River Flows, which brings Gubaidulina to mind in its use of accordion, although the inspiration was a Messiaen organ work transcribed for accordion, as well as the titular flow of water underneath ice.

Suite In Old Style, which was being performed at the Lockenhaus Festival where Manfred Eicher discovered Tabakova's music, takes in influences from baroque music and architechture; she described it as "a conversation I wanted to have... with Rameau".  To close, the string septet Such Different Paths gradually introduces the instruments in pairs, passing melodic lines around until the solo violin soars above them.  More music by Tabakova coming up on Monday.

link

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Kate Moore - Dances And Canons, performed by Saskia Lankhoorn (2014)

Piano music by British-Australian composer Kate Moore (b. 1979), who studied under Louis Andriessen and now lives in the Netherlands, performed by her friend and collaborator Saskia Lankhoorn (same age, Dutch born & bred).  There's lots to love here for fans of the piano music of Philip Glass, John Adams (especially the second track Stories For Ocean Shells) et al, but Moore's stamp on her work is definitely an individual one.  For these pieces, she variously took inspriation from woven patterns, nature and tectonic movement, and the writings of Sufi philosopher Hazrat Inayat Khan.

 

Khan's words were the direct inspiration for The Body Is An Ear, from an ancient legend about human ensoulment by angel song, and the two pianos are overlaid exquisitely.  Moore also writes for four pianos, in the longest track Canon, where the gentle reverberations of the piano parts made me think of Jordan De La Sierra.  Sensitive Spot calls for the same piano part to be played in multiple layers, creating gorgeous ripples of sound.  Highly recommended, beautifully evocative music.

link

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Suzanne Ciani, London Contemporary Orchestra et al - Pioneers Of Sound (BBC Proms 2018)

A fantastic feast for the ears from the BBC Proms two years ago, with music by some true sonic pioneers - and all pieces recorded in surround sound for maximum effect on headphones.  The concert starts subtly with an atmospheric piece of tape music by Delia Derbyshire, before bursting into life, and coming bang up to date, with Knockturning by Manchester-based sound artist Cee Haines (stylized as CHAINES).

Laurie Spiegel's music is featured next, but with no electronics as might be expected - Only Night Falls is a rare orchestral work by Spiegel.  The next part of the concert, and the highlight for me, returns to electronic music in stunning style, as Suzanne Ciani sits down at the Buchla synth for her Improvisation On Four Sequences.  It's a heady immersion in expertly-tweaked electronics, and for any connoisseurs out there of "radio presenters who can't pronounce Moog properly", you're in for an extra treat at the end of it.

The stage is then reconfigured for the two orchestras (one amplified with echo effects), electronics and turntables required for the epic finale.  Daphne Oram's Still Point was written in 1949 when she was just 23, and more than lives up to the Pioneers Of Sound concept.  The score was thought lost until some drafts emerged and led to a Proms premiere in 2016, then a full score was found shortly afterwards which at last allowed for the full performance captured here.  Next week - music from this year's Proms.

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