The Squid's Ear Magazine


Holterbach, Emmanuel / Blutwurst: Ricercar nell'ombra (Another Timbre)

French composer/musician Emmanuel Holterbach was invited to work with the Italian ensemble Blutwurst founded in 2011 by Marco Baldini (trumpet), Edoardo Ricci (reeds) and Daniela Fantechi (piano & accordion), creating this epic 45-minute work focused on tone and sound, in which dense clouds of sound swirl in varying shades from near silence to thunderous intensity.
 

Price: $11.50


Quantity:

Out of Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 2.00 units

Sample The Album:





product information:

Personnel:



Emmanuel Holterbach-composer

Blutwurst-ensemble

Cristina Abati-viola

Marco Baldini-trumpet

Maurizio Costantini-double bass

Daniela Fantechi-accordion

Michele Lanzini-cello

Edoardo Ricci-bass clarinet

Luisa Santacesaria-harmonium


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




Label: Another Timbre
Catalog ID: at151
Squidco Product Code: 28756

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: UK
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded in Florence, Italy, in March, 2019.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"The ensemble Blutwurst was founded in Florence in 2011 by musicians involved in radical improvisation and contemporary classical music.

The founding members are Marco Baldini (trumpet), Edoardo Ricci (bass clarinet, alto saxophone) and Daniela Fantechi (piano, accordion). The ensemble grew up since 2012 with Michele Lanzini (cello), Cristina Abati (viola), Luca Giorgi (electronics, percussions), Maurizio Costantini (double-bass) and Luisa Santacesaria (piano, harmonium).

At the first stage Blutwurst focused on improvisation and on the study and implementation of open and graphic scores by composers such as John Cage, Christian Wolff, Morton Feldman, Cornelius Cardew, Alvin Lucier and La Monte Young, and realized sonorizations of silent and art movies.

In 2013 the ensemble began to work on its own compositions with the project Yoğurt, entirely dedicated to the electro-acoustic exploration of unisons and drones.

Since 2013, Blutwurst performed, among others, at Frau Frisör Fosca (Florence, 2013 and 2014), SpazioK (Prato, 2014), Tempo Reale Festival (Florence, 2015), Estate Fiesolana (Fiesole, 2016), Cafe OTO (London, 2016).

In 2015 Blutwurst realized the soundscape for the essay movie Negotiating Amnesia by the London-based artist Alessandra Ferrini, in partnership with Festival dei Popoli and Murate-Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea, Florence.

From September 2015 to January 2016 Blutwurst was part of the Residence Program IN_Tempo Reale. In May 2016 the ensemble released its first album Tenebrae for the Tempo Reale Collection and, in December 2016, the LP Yoğurt for the English label Negative Days."-Blutwurst



Another Timbre Interview with Emmanuel Holterbach

Tell us about the 'ricercar nell'ombra' project. How did it start, what does the title refer to, and how was the piece developed with Blutwurst?

Meeting Blutwurst was like a shooting star appearing in the night sky... They loved my work, I loved their work. So make a choice: become friends or work together. We actually did both.Blutwurst are based in the beautiful city of Florence and had good connections with Tempo Reale (an organization for contemporary music research founded in the 1980's by Luciano Berio). This is where we were able to start work together during a three-week residency back in May 2018.

I come from an art background and turned at an early age to sound art back in the 90's (sound installation, noise performance, inventing instruments). I've worked as a musique concrète composer since early 2000, so I was confused when they proposed that I should compose a piece for them. I actually don't have a clue how to write a score - I don't even read notes! But they do, so I started to consider strategies of collective work...

In my electroacoustic work, there are a lot of cycles, embroideries, loops into loops into loops into loops of various length, creating hypnotic swell effects. I immediately thought that would be an interesting way to start. Cycles of tones played by skilled musicians - and that's what Blutwurst are!On the other hand, I have a love affair with Italian music, especially ancient, medieval music, through to Baroque, and on to the experimental music of the 60's and 70's (Giusto Pio, Roberto Cacciapaglia, Marino Zuccheri, Teresa Rampazzi and Gruppo NPS, Enore Zaffiri, Franca Sacchi - thank you Die Schachtel for bringing most of these to light). So I wanted to make a humble and sincere homage to the Italian musical tradition.

There was also this beautiful composition, " Ricercar III " by Francesco Guami, a composer from Lucca in Tuscany who worked during the XVI century. The first seconds of this piece fascinated me, seven notes whirling in a gorgeous, simple melody... blooming. So this is where things started: if the notes of this melody created such a beautiful state of contemplation, what if we started stretching them, permutating them, and created a large structure out of them? The intuition was good and turned into a fertile soil for our collaboration to blossom.

Then we talked about important things.I walk and hike a lot. Walking in the landscape is a basis of my musical thoughts (and also in my life). Experiencing the subtle variations of the ground, minerals, vegetation, lichen, mushrooms, from lakesides to mountains, from forests to large plains, valleys, shores. And also the tensions in the air, meteorological events, the strength of tectonics...all these elemental considerations titillating and happening in your mind when you start experiencing the great outside, in whatever wild and solitary places still remain.

How to create with music an experience of the deep, of the large forces surrounding us everywhere, every day, at all times?

We also talked about the ancient tradition of scroll painting in Japanese and Chinese culture, especially the long horizontal scrolls, where you can get lost into contemplation, wandering on painted paths.All these elements were sources of inspiration for this collaborative work.

Then we worked together a lot. It was more like the process of painting a canvas. While the seven musicians were playing these seven notes as long tones embroidered together, I was influencing the way that energies and tension should appear on this large sound geography.At some point in the work, the balance of the piece started to be almost an hour in length, which was impressive!Then the Blutwurst musicians began to draw a more precise score and organisation of events for proper interpretation. It was a very interesting way of composing together.

I wanted the composition to have intense parts, like a thunderstorm or high mountains. I also wanted to have forests and valleys, silence and shadows. This is how the title popped out, a combination of ricercar (research) and ombra (shadow).


Can you tell us about your background in experimental music? How did you come to it, and where are you based?

I could tell you so much about the pleasant journey I had in the French underground and my love of records, and all the inspiring composers I've been lucky enough to meet during all these years. I could also talk about my long-term relationship with Eliane Radigue, helping her to gather, organise and publish her archive works and biography... But maybe it would be boring?

Or maybe things are more simple. Maybe I am very sensitive to the sounds surrounding me since I was a child and have a great satisfaction just listening to various phenomenon (natural, electrical, mechanical, radio, etc). Maybe all the walks in the wild, mountain hikes, and wandering around were so inspiring, and these are the places where my mind and perceptions can blossom, flourish and bring intuitions into the field of consciousness.Maybe I understand the vocabulary of wind, streams, rocks, living beings a bit more comfortably that the vocabulary of civilization?

Maybe my background in experimental music takes root at the same place were poetry feeds me, in the experience of everyday reality (I don't read a lot of imaginative poetry, more contemplative poetry about everyday phenomena). Because I don't feel like things should be " invented " (are we even able to invent?), or maybe I'm not really impressed by imagination. Everything is already here, magic and intense and fascinating and wonderful in the world as we perceive it. Stranger, stronger than anything we would be able to invent. Then my only aim is to find a proper vocabulary to express what I experience (if I am touched by this, and I know I am not that unique, then someone else will probably be touched too).Is this experimental?Also, I am very playful and have always lived under the official poverty threshold (I'm ok with this, it's a choice). So I like to work with cheap devices and equipment, and it's an interesting game to make these sound large and strong and intense. This is also why I have designed some of the instruments I use (like enharmonic glasses, or other electronic devices). Field recording can be so satisfying, as can both analogue and digital electronics. The studio, as an instrument, is a grotto of miracles.But I must say that leaving these solitary paths for a while and working with musicians was really a great pleasure.

I grew up in eastern France (Metz & Strasbourg) in post-industrial surroundings, then I lived for ten years in the mountains round Grenoble. Now I live in Lyon, close to the Saône river, which breathes every day in a different way.


Artist Biographies

"Emmanuel Holterbach is a French sound artist and composer of musique concrète. Holterbach focuses on performances, compositions and installations for which he coined the term "acousmagic". His research is based on the exploration of the intense and spontaneous musicality of specific natural phenomena; therefore, his electroacoustic compositions are made using sounds captured in natural and industrial environments. He is inventor and builder of acoustic sound objects (see his duo Orbes on enharmonic glasses), machines for sound spatialization (called acousmotopographes) and mutant speakers. With Lionel Marchetti and Jérôme Noetinger, Holterbach is part of the new wave of composers and performers who have renewed the tradition of French musique concrète, expanding its spectrum of investigation. Since 2004 Holterbach is the curator of Eliane Radigue's archives and one of the world's leading experts on the work of the French composer, of whom he wrote the official biography for the INA-GRM editions, Paris. He "rediscovered" and exploited the work for feedback by Radigue, of which he has also edited publications for the labels Algha Marghen and Important Records."

-Blutwurst Website (http://www.blutwurst.it/2019/01/16/emmanuel-holterbach-blutwurst/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

Cristina Abati: "Musician, performer, actress, poetess.

At the age of eleven she approached music, starting to play the viola; she spent his adolescence attending the Art Institute to discover, in 1993, the world of theater. she graduated in 2001 at the DAMS of Bologna, in dramaturgy with Prof. Giuliano Scabia.

In 1998 she founded the Gogmagog Company with other actors and friends ,and stages the following shows: "It is a lie that I am a prisoner-studies for a labyrinth" (1998), "Estribillo" (1999), "Mr. Avantgard Stellar Circus "(2000)," Cani "(2001)," Possibilities "(2003) with the Katzenmacher company of Alfonso Santagata," Felix "(2003)," Have I None "(2007)," Until the murder "(2008) winner of the project" ETI-Nuove Creatività "," Trenta "(2010)," Molière Fragments "with the direction of Virginio Liberti (2010)," The wishing machine "with the direction of Caterina Poggesi (2011), "It would be comical if it were not tragic" directed by Virginio Liberti (2012), "Mappamito" (2013), QUEI2 directed by Marcella Vanzo (2014)

Since 2002 she has undertaken his own independent research path that concerns original writing and the relationship between music and poetry on the scene: in the spring of 2002, she staged "Della Mia Santa Miseria", with the pianist and composer Andrea Allulli. In December of the same year, she published the book "Della Mia Santa Miseria", from the eponymous text of the show, for the City Lights Firenze publishing house. In the spring of 2003, the new work "Dawn and the night-score" made its debut. In 2005, after the meeting with the musician Massimo Fantoni, the show "Eat the moon" was born , and in May 2007 she published the book + cd with the poems and music of the show for the publishing house Zona .

Since 2004 she has dedicated himself to the musical practice of musical improvisation, following workshops-concerts with Scott Rosenberg, Eugenio Sanna, Edoardo Ricci, Jacopo Andreini, Jason Ajemian, Nicolas Collins, Tristan Honsinger, in Tuia Cherici's "Manucinema", with "Neem" Orchestra, " Blutwurst " and "KU" ensemble . Since 2005 she has been a stable part of the ensemble "Laboratorio Fatti Sonori" of the contemporary composer Dario Buccino , working with him on his "HN System", notation system, executive techniques, and compositional techniques, based on the parameterization of physical action, and on experiential contagion. In 2009 she performed the composition of Dario Buccino "The bottom to which to recall the motion of the comb" , for flugelhorn and cellist, who sees her as a cello performer.

In 2008 she worked as a musician and actress for the show "The Adventures of Pinocchio" by the Mannini Dall'Orto company, for a tour in China.

Since 2009 she has collaborated as a performer and musician with the Fosca group , in projects directed by Caterina Poggesi.

In 2012 she collaborates with the poet Carlo Cuppini and the dancer Ramona Caia , for the project "Militanza del fiore"

SHe works with the playwright and poet Giuliano Scabia, in the show "Songs of looking away with a golden child", which debuts in April at the Bolognini Theater of Pistoia.

In 2013 the performance " CONT, a solo..2 " came to life , with the dancer Enrico L'Abbate , making his debut at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (Spain), and replying to the MAP / P Festival in Porto (Portugal).

In 2014 she began a collaboration with the choreographic research group CANI .A new project begins with the dancer Enrico L'Abbate, presenting a first study of the show " DUO ", which will be presented definitively in March at the "Nah Dran" 2015 Ada Studio @ Uferstudios (Berlin)

She is currently working on the project "There are no words" , a solo work that sees her as a composer and performer on viola, cello and voice."

-Cristina Abati Website (Translated by Google) (http://www.cristinaabati.net/biografia)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Marco Baldini (Florence, 1986) graduated in Roman Archeology at the Università degli Studi di Firenze. He studied music and trumpet with Tolmino Marianini, Luca Marianini and with Donato De Sena, at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole. He attended workshops with Axel Dörner, Birgit Ulher, Roswell Rudd and Mario Bertoncini. In 2011 he founded Blutwurst with Daniela Fantechi and Edoardo Ricci. Since 2015 he has been collaborating with Tempo Reale on several projects as redactor for musicaelettronica.it and as curator for the series of concerts TRK. He collaborated also with London based artist Alessandra Ferrini for the soundtracks of her essay movies Negotiating Amnesia (2015) and Radio Ghetto Relay (2016)."

-Mnemoscape (https://www.mnemoscape.org/dystopic-listening)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

Maurizio Costantini is an Italian double bassist, know for the bands Alea Ensemble, Dieci Ensemble, Tre Corde, and Blutwurst.

-Squidco, Discogs (https://www.discogs.com/artist/2477901-Maurizio-Costantini)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Daniela Fantechi (1984) was born in Florence, Italy. She studied Composition at Conservatory Luigi Cherubini of Florence, with Rosario Mirigliano and Paolo Furlani, and, at Kunstuniversität, in Graz, with Beat Furrer, Clemens Gadenstätter and Georg Friedrich Haas. She has attended several masterclasses and summer courses, such as Impuls and Acanthes, headed by Helmut Lachenmann, Beat Furrer, Dieter Amman, Tristan Murail, Daniele Bravi, Toshio Hosokawa, Mark Andre, Stefano Gervasoni, Mauro Lanza. Her compositions have been performed in Italy, Austria, Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium. She was in Vienna (January-March 2016) for the Artist-in-Residence Programm, by Kultur Kontakt, Österreich, and in Graz (February- April 2017) for the St.A.I.R, Artist-in-Residence Programm, by Steiermark, Österreich.

She is now a doctoral student at the University of Antwerp, within the docARTES program run by the Orpheus Instituut, in Gent, Belgium. Here she is also working as a Doctoral researcher within the research cluster Music, Thought and Technology .

She graduated with first-class honours in Master of Musicology at the University of Florence in 2009, and she specialized in Pedagogy and Music, for music teaching at the preschool and elementary school, with the course Musica Bambina, in Pisa. After that, she has been working on several projects with children at the Teatro Verdi in Pisa and in many schools in Florence and in Pisa.

In 2010, together with the trumpet player Marco Baldini and the clarinet player Edoardo Ricci, she founded Blutwurst, a collective of musicians, focused on radical improvisation and on the performance of contemporary composers' graphic-scores. Since 2013 the collective began to work on its own projects, composing works entirely dedicated to the electro-acoustic exploration of unisons and drones. Their work Tenebrae has been released as CD by Tempo Reale Collection, in May 2016, and their work Yoğurt has been released as a vinyl by the English label Negative Days, in December 2016 (www.blutwurst.it, soundcloud.com/blutwurst).

From 2015 to 2018 Daniela, with Marco Baldini and Luisa Santacesaria, curated the series of concerts TRK, Tempo Reale (Firenze, Italy). From 2015 she has been an editor for the website www.musicaelettronica.it."

-Daniela Fantechi Website (https://www.danielafantechi.eu/bio/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Michele Lanzini: Graduated in Cello at Conservatorio "L. Cherubini" of Florence with M° Andrea Nannoni, in 2009/2010 also attends a String Quartet annual Masterclass at Scuola di Musica di Fiesole and then orchestrally formed at the "Academy of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino" (2006/2007) and at "Italian Youth Orchestra Academy" (2008/2009). Since 2011 joins the ensemble "Blutwurst". Beside concerts activity he has being teaching cello in many Tuscan music schools including at "Scuola di Musica di Fiesole". In 2015 attends a Master in Music operator for Orchestras and Children's and Youth Choirs at the Department of Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Florence. He is currently Cello professor at High Music School "L.Bianciardi" of Grosseto."

-Discogs (https://www.discogs.com/artist/5240257-Michele-Lanzini)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Edoardo Ricci is a key figure in the underground music panorama in Italy. He's an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, caustic illustrator and irreverent poet.From Avantgarde Jazz to free improvised music, from experimental rock to primitivist cabaret and noise exploration, his career delineates a unique personality in a forty-year long trip in music from the other side of the fence.

In the late sixties he concentrated on reed instruments. Even if he favors alto saxophone and bass clarinet, over the years Ricci developed his own personal technique on many other wind instruments including trombone.In the early seventies, he gained notice for playing in Guido Mazzon's Gruppo Contemporaneo. He became a revelation in the Italian avant-garde jazz scene and soon he became interested in radical improvisation and experimental music.In 1973 together with Francesco Donnini he founded the legendary pataphysical orchestra N.E.E.M. based in Florence. A large ensemble that blends composed and improvised music and theatre in its own idiosyncratic way. The Orchestra recorded one cult album in 1978, Come Eravamo Brutti da Piccini on the Materiali Sonori label and a second one, Lo Jodel del Segafanciullo in 2002 on Burp Publications under the moniker of e-N.E.E.M. Projekt. The group is still active.

In the late seventies and early eighties among the many artists he played with, were Tristan Honsinger and Sean Bergin and with Muzic Circo and Padouk. Also in the late seventies, Ricci started his collaboration with Eugenio Sanna, later documented by two albums on Burp Lo Scorfano Miracolato and Le Sette Premonizioni Ortofrutticole, that were recognized as representing a crucial moment in Italian creative music at that time.Since the nineties his musical path lead him to encounter a number of international figures among which the heterogenous Florence-based collective Burp Enterprise. In 1996, he joined Mat Pogo and WJ Meatball in Jealousy Party and founded Crap with trumpet player Roy Paci and drummer Jacopo Andreini. He also played with freeform heavy rockers Bron Y Aur and in 2001 recorded I Segnali della Ritirata with Eugenio Sanna and Roger Turner.

In 2013 he contributed to two Jealousy Party albums, Mercato Centrale, for Burp, and All Yours on Audition. Currently, he plays with the Florence-based new music collective Blutwurst and with the noise project Athanoi together with Stefano Bartolini. He plays on "Morire Per La Patria" the most recent album by the Milanese avant rock unit Fuzz Orchestra. Live In Pisa, a second album with Eugenio Sanna and Roger Turner is out now for Burp Publications."

-Audition Records (https://www.auditionrecords.com/ar091.php)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

Luisa Santacesaria is an Italian harmonium player, known for the bands Tomaga, Blutwurst, and Calibro 35.

-Discogs (https://www.discogs.com/artist/5240258-Luisa-Santacesaria)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Ricercar nell'ombra 46:09

Related Categories of Interest:


Compositional Forms
Large Ensembles
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
New in Compositional Music

Search for other titles on the label:
Another Timbre.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Other Recommended Releases:
Di Domenico, Giovanni / Silvia Tarozzi / Emmanuel Holterbach
L'Occhio Del Vedere
(elsewhere)
During an artistic residency at the GMEA in Albi, France, composer & pianist Giovanni Di Domenico recorded with the trio of violinist Silvia Tarozzi and percussionist Emmannuel Holterbach performing on a large frame drum, completing the piece into this mysteriously insinuating and lovely triptych where sparse melodies emerge & submerge into a multidimensional expanse.
Baldini, Marco
Vesperi
(Another Timbre)
Influenced by the seemingly contradictory sources of 16th century Italian composers and their polyphonic compositions, Eliane Radigue, and North Indian classical, Italian composer Marco Baldini's beautifully dark works employ a slow, rarefied pace and subdued dynamics with a fascination for pianissimo playing, heard in eight chamber compositions for low strings and marimba.
Cabado, Tomas / Christoph Schiller
Unconscious Collections
(Another Timbre)
Swiss prepared spinet player Christoph Schiller and Argentine guitarist-composer Tomás Cabado, whose work is found on the Wandelweiser label, met in Schiller's studio in Basel to perform compositions from both and to improvise, recording this wonderfully relaxed but compelling music that exists in the fertile grey area between composition and improvisation.
Falzone, J.P.A. / Morgan Evans-Weiler
Chordioid [2 CDs]
(Another Timbre)
2 CDs of works for violin, piano & vibraphone, composed and performed by two young American composers and members of the ensemble Ordinary Affects, who have recorded music by the Jurg Frey, Magnus Granberg, Michael Pisaro, Eva Maria Houben, &c.; the 1st disc presents the Feldman-esque work of JPA Falzone, while the 2nd contains an exquisite new work by Morgan Evans-Weiler.
Smith, Linda Catlin
Wanderer
(Another Timbre)
Eight sophisticated chamber pieces composed by Linda Catlin Smith and realized by the Canadian Apartment House ensemble, including a solo piano performed by Philip Thomas, a piano duo with Thomas and Mark Knoop, and works for percussion & cello, 2 quintet pieces for strings, percussion and winds, and two 7-piece conducted works with two percussionists, strings and brass.
Miller, Cassandra
O Zomer!
(Another Timbre)
Two ensemble works and two solo pieces by Christian Wolff's favourite contemporary composer, Cassandra Miller, who is blazing a very personal trail through the experimental music world, with brilliant performances by Apartment House, Mira Benjamin, Philip Thomas, and Charles Curtis with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ilan Volkov.
Insub Meta Orchestra
13 & 27
(Another Timbre)
Coordinated and composed by d'incise and Cyril Bondi, this incredible Swiss-based collective of 30 to 40 experimental musicians was founded in 2010 and has presented concerts and recordings since; this CD presents two works, "13 unissons" splitting the orchestra into 13 subgroups; and "27 times" where each musician plays 27 times in 30 minutes; phenomenal.
Szlavnics, Chiyoko
During a Lifetime
(Another Timbre)
Three works from Canadian composer Chiyoko Szlavnics, two electroacoustic compositions incorporating sinewaves, one with a saxophone quartet and the other with two accordions, two flutes and two percussionists; and a string trio of long sustained tones and slow glissandi.



Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:
Lang, Klaus / Trio Amos
Tehran Dust
(Another Timbre)
Three chamber works by Klaus Lang of a beautifully fragile and dark nature and a meticulous inner structure, alongside arrangements of early music pieces by Johannes Ockeghem and Pierre de la Rue, performed by Klaus Lang himself on organ with the Trio Amos of Sylvie Lacroix on flute, Krassimir Sterev on accordion and Michael Moser on cello.
Strieff, Peter
Chronos-Kairos
(Edition Wandelweiser Records)
Exploring the difference between the two Greek concepts of time--chronos (measurable) and kairos (qualitative moments)--Bern composer Urs Peter Schneider's 1973 composition uses synthesizers to measure, divide, experience, forget, free from, and embody time; plus a 1968 composition with Ensemble Nueue Horizon Bern, and two recent works with Ensemble Montaigne.
Niblock, Phill / Franck Vigroux / Kasper T. Toeplitz
BestiaIRE [VINYL]
(Matiere Memoire)
Two large works of complex sound and drone composed by New York avant composer Phill Niblock and performed by the French IRE ensemble of Kasper T. Toeplitz on electric bass, Franck Vigroux on electric guitar & electronics, and Helene Breschand on electric harp, exploring Niblock's work through the innovative merging of electronic instrumentation.
O'Rourke, Jim / Apartment House
Best That You Do This For Me
(Another Timbre)
The UK ensemble Apartment House commissioned this work from composer & experimenter Jim O'Rourke based on their performance of other O'Rourke works, here interpreting a new graphic score designed like a sonic mobile, creating a minimal yet episodic piece of flexible interpretation as the performers whistle, hum and quietly sing in combination with bowed harmonics.
Lamb, Catherine / Harmonic Space Orchestra
Prisma Interius VII 7 VIII
(Sacred Realism)
Two hauntingly beautiful works in microtonal composer and violist Catherine Lamb's "Prisma Interius" series, the first a duo with violinist Johnny Change and Xavier Lopez on the "secondary rainbow synthesizer", which channels the sound outside of the performance space as a generator of ambient sound; then a sextet of strings and winds with two secondary rainbow synthesizers.
Lafkas, Andrew
Two Paths with Active Shadows Under Three Moons and Surveillance
(Sacred Realism)
Composer Andrew Lafkas' large ensemble piece with performers including C. Spencer Yah, Ron Stabinsky, Barry Weisblat, Sean Meehan, Ben Owen, &c. is a meditative work intended for live performance, this album the 2nd of 3 performances, a brooding and resonant rendering of rich and subtle detail that evolves over 70 minutes, carrying its listeners in a profound revery.
Wooley, Nate
Seven Storey Mountain VI
(Pyroclastic Records)
Composer & trumpeter Nate Wooley presents the 6th composition of his SSM series exploring music's ability to bring catharsis and ecstatic release to the performers and listeners, in a large ensemble of 11 musicians and voice, in a stunningly sophisticated large work of modern orchestration through acoustic and electronic/amplified instruments; a masterwork.
Morris, Joe
Instantiation: Versioning
(Glacial Erratic)
The 2nd album in guitarist Joe Morris' "Instantiation" series, where each part is composed with specific notated and operational components such that it is impossible to perform any part the same way twice, performed with the quintet of Daniel Klingsberg on bass, Alex Quinn on trumpet, Michael Sabin on trombone, Raef Sengupta on saxophone.
Mattrey, Joanna
Veiled
(Relative Pitch)
The first solo record for NY violist Joanna Mattrey, performing also on the Stroh violin, in a deep exploration of the sound possibilities for both instruments, using preparations to alter the resonance of the viola, masking its overtly singing and beautiful nature and allowing for unexpected and unusual textures which weave around melodic lines; unique and fascinating.
Denley, Jim / Eric Normand
Plant 3 [VINYL]
(Tour de Bras)
The collaboration of Quebec bassist Eric Normand and Australian saxophonist Jim Denley, both dedicated experimenters, in their third duo album under the Plant name, here recording live at the 2019 Syndey, Australia NowNow Festival, with Denley also playing bass flute, fruits and objects, and Normand using objects and playing the bass amp itself.
Polwechsel / Klaus Lang
Unseen
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
The innovative acoustic free improvising ensemble Polwechsel, bridging contemporary music and free improvisation in ways that sound deceptively electroacoustic and comprised of Michael Moser on cello, Werner Dafeldecker on double bass, and Martin Brandlmayr & Burkhard Beins on cymbals & percussion, are joined by Klaus Lang performing on the church organ of St. Lambrecht's Abbey.
Meyer, Bedrnhard / John Hollenbeck
Grids
(Shhpuma)
Bringing together NY drummer/percussionist John Hollenbeck, also on prepared piano, with Berlin bassist Bernhard Meyer for an album that blends textural rock, electronic and jazz approaches in 9 elusively calm yet structurally turbulent pieces, using complex systems of cross rhythms against atmospheric immersion, occasionally disruptive but generally eccentrically controlled and exploratory.
Toned (Corder / Suarez / Weeks)
The Private Sector
(Shhpuma)
Schizophrenically skronky improv of ea-cutups and semi-maniacal segments that resolve to near-stillness from the West Coast TONED trio of Nathan Corder on electronics, Leo Suarez on drums, and Tom Weeks on sax, using a nonlinear and nonhierarchical organizational process and multiple layers of compositional feedback loops to create unpredictably bizarre and overtly fun music.
Lopes, Luis Humanization 4Tet (w/ Amado / Gonzalez / Gonzalez)
Believe, Believe
(Clean Feed)
Energetic and assertive jazzcore improv from Portuguese guitarist Luis Lopes' long-running Humanization 4Tet with saxophonist Rodrigo Amado and the near-telepathic rhythm section of Aaron Gonzalez on double bass and Stefan Gonzalez on drums, in an album recorded in the studio in front of an audience in New Orleans during their 2018 tour, finding the band in formidable form.
Fire! Orchestra / Krzysztof Penderecki
Actions [VINYL]
(Rune Grammofon)
"Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra" was originally written by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki for the New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra, assembled by Don Cherry for the occasion and conducted by composer himself; this new extended reading and conduction of the score from 2018 was originated and directed by Mats Gustafsson, a powerful update and expansion of the original work.
Testa, Carl
Sway Prototypes - Volume 3
(Sway)
The third volume of NY bassist, composer, and electronic/computer musician Carl Testa's amazing Sway project, giving an interactive electronic processor its own voice interfacing with any size ensemble, here with two new works--one for quintet among a set of Chicago improvisers, the other in Portland, Maine with a sextet--each uniquely voiced and excitingly unpredictable.
Schneider, Urs Peter
Klavierwerke 1971 - 2015 [2 CDs]
(Edition Wandelweiser Records)
Four compositions for solo piano from Swiss composer Urs Peter Schneider, founder of Ensemble Neue Horizonte Bern, with four accompanying prose pieces with text in German from Schneider himself, Martin Luther, and Ita Wegman; unusual words to accompany Schneider's minimalist works of clear progressions, thoughtful direction and interesting concepts.
Cabado, Tomas
Historia De La Luz: Cuaderno De Guitarra
(Edition Wandelweiser Records)
An harmonically rich album of spacious guitar interaction from two Argentinian guitarists and composers--Catriel Nievas and Tomas Cabado--who also work in the trio Merce / Cabado / Nievas, a minimal yet satisfying set of 8 pieces that interact through stereo positioning, harmonic disturbance and long decay, the effect mesmerizing and beautifully peaceful.



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC