Conlon Nancarrow - Studies For Player Piano, Vols. 1-4 (rec. 1977)

I'd been seeing the name Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997) crop up for a while, and decided to take the plunge a little while ago.  What I've been struck by, perhaps to an even greater degree than with Harry Partch, is some of the most unique, single-minded music ever created.  There might be fewer instruments here than in Partch - just two slightly modified player-pianos - but Nancarrow's music is so stunningly original I could probably listen to it for the rest of my life and it would still sound fresh.

Starting from an early Art Tatum influence, but already with much more ambitious 'sliding' tempi, Nancarrow went on to develop an interest in the canon structures of J.S. Bach, taking them to the nth degree and far beyond the limits of human playability.  If you're interested in more detail on the theoretical side of this style of composition, the YouTube video below explains it beautifully - and/or you can just go ahead and download these four volumes of  Nancarrow's music that he supervised in 1977 and released one at a time in the next few years after.

The sequencing of each album is wonderfully effective - Volume 1 kicks off with one of the most accessible Studies, No. 3, aka the Boogie-Woogie Suite.  The sheer joy and exhilaration in this 15-minute stretch of Nancarrow's music alone was enough to get me hooked - and three hours worth, of wildly varying complexity, harmony, and breathtaking rhythm/tempo, is just sheer bliss.  Unreservedly recommended.

Disc 1
Disc 2
Disc 3
Disc 4