Six elegant, dark, sensuous soundscapes in which emotions seem to bubble just below cool surfaces. Harmonically rich and texturally subtle music that features idiosyncratic electric guitar playing techniques developed by composer/performer Cox, whom noted guitarist-composer Ry Cooder has called “a hidden master of the crepuscular and the diaphanous.” On this CD Cox is joined by celebrated composer/trumpeter Jon Hassell, popular film composer Thomas Newman (piano), and composer/performer/instrument designer Chas Smith (pedal steel guitar). The Wire magazine wrote of this album, “Gently undulating melodies are held in soft focus, without becoming cloying; [Cox’s] enveloping harmonies are less innocent than they first appear. Prettiness with a tough core.” And Fanfare magazine wrote, “If you imagine floating through the night sky on a large abstract tapestry, you’ll get a feeling for what Cox’s music is like.” Motion (UK), opined, “Quiet music of consummate musicianship…an achingly beautiful suite of pieces featuring slowly, oh-so-slowly shifting soundscapes. One of a kind and clear candidate for every ambienteer’s ‘Best of 2001’ list.”

Since 1999, So Percussion has been creating music that explores all the extremes of emotion and musical possibility. It has not been an easy music to define. Called an “experimental powerhouse” by the Village Voice, “astonishing and entrancing” by Billboard Magazine, and “brilliant” by the New York Times, the Brooklyn based quartet’s innovative work with today’s most exciting composers and their own original music has quickly helped them forge a unique and diverse career.

Threads, written for So Percussion in 2005, is a half-hour long “cantata” for percussion quartet in ten short movements. There are three “threads” that are interwoven in the piece: Arias and Preludes that focus on the metallic pitched sounds of vibraphones, glockenspiel and pipes; Choruses in which drumming predominates; and Recitatives made largely from Cage-like noise instruments, bottles, flower pots, crotales, etc. The aim of the different threads is to highlight the wide range of qualities that percussion instruments are capable of, from lyrical and tender to forceful and aggressive, and weave them into one continuous “thread”.

-- Paul Lansky

For more than two decades, Polansky, who the Village Voice called “the heir apparent to the Cowell/Nancarrow/Tenney genius experimentalist mantle,” has been composing a series of fascinating mensuration canons (a formal concept dating back to the Renaissance) that run the sonic gamut from wildly boisterous to serenely introverted. This disc collects thirteen of these canons with widely varying instrumentations that include marimbas, gamelan, electric guitars, children's voices, computer, choir, and chamber ensemble. Performances by and collaborations with William Winant, Jody Diamond, Daniel Goode, Nathan Davis, Nick Didkovsky, and others. The Wire magazine wrote about this CD, “An unashamedly tactile approach to musical material, forging an oblique angle to tradition… cool and elegant…. [I]t’s a mark of his resourceful mind that he can adapt the basic rules into a series of such complex and varied works.... Polansky’s canons show the extreme liberties that can be born from such exacting discipline.” International Record Review commented, “The music of Larry Polansky is as much fun to listen to as it is to think or get serious about…the results are dazzling as each canon defines its individual properties and unique sound world.... The transformations are ubiquitous and compelling…. With so much on offer, this is one of the best discs Cold Blue music has issued.” And ClassicalNet wrote, “Larry Polansky is the modern dean of the mensuration canon…. These canons are clever, mysterious, and comical—part theory of relativity, part Rube Goldberg.”

Composer/performer/instrument designer Smith’s exotic compositional textures here utilize the same unique instruments that he employed on his popular earlier recording Nikko Wolverine. These include resonators that sprout bowed and struck rods; large, clangorous titanium sculptures; and vibraphone-like arrays of metal plates. The music plays with the listener’s perceived sense of time as spare moments slowly drift into dense ones. Fanfare magazine wrote, “The sounds seem to go on to the brink of forever…. Aluminum Overcast is practically tactile as it presents its edges, both dull and razor-sharp, to the listener…. Smith’s instruments were born, I gather, in the welder’s flame and under the blows of a hammer…and the music they make, which can become Wagnerian in intensity, bears witness to their violent birth. And yet, like heated metal, there is a softer, more yielding side to Smith’s music…. Aluminum Overcast is a buzz that becomes a burr, and a burr that becomes a shower of sparks. The density of the music fluctuates, but it remains consistently involving.” And All-Music Guide wrote, “Some artists have a signature sound. Then again some inhabit a sonic realm that is their own. Visiting Chas Smith’s realm tends to be an unforgettable experience…. Smith hears beautiful overtones in his creations and he communicates them wonderfully. His soundscapes are engaging… haunting like Ligeti’s best works…. Careful listening reveals worlds within worlds of sounds where metal becomes an organic entity…. Strongly recommended.”

This recording brings together two of Los Angeles-based composer Fox’s haunting electro-acoustic works, The Copy of the Drawing, for spoken voice and electronics, and Last Things, for bass clarinet, pedal steel guitar, piano, and electronics. The Wire magazine called this CD “an austere, ethereal experience.” And International Record Review wrote of it, “Imagine a view of the sky on a brilliantly clear night, from an uninhabited part of the world: Fox’s music invites one to believe that if the stars, constellations and galaxies emitted sounds, these unearthly harmonics are what one might hear.” ClassicalNet commented that is was “Hypnotic…very impressive stuff.” The San Francisco Bay Guardian wrote that “the work is dreamlike, seemingly without beginning or end…it appears to exist outside of the realm of time.”

Bruno Walter, like many another revered conductor, was also a composer. Let's not forget Weingartner, Klemperer, Furtwängler and Leslie Heward to mention only a few. I am also sure there were and are plenty of revered composers who were also conductors. Walter's conducting heritage has had its meed of recognition especially on CBS-Sony (39-CD box issued in 2012) but also on Decca with Ferrier and Patzak in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde.

His work as a composer came to an end when exposed at close quarters - conducting premieres in many cases - to the full glory to the music of his friend Mahler. Before that withering blast had taken its toll he wrote two symphonies, Das Siegesfest for solo voices, chorus and orchestra, various songs and one each string quartet, piano quintet, piano trio and violin sonata. The violin sonata has had quite a few recordings - Graffin (Hyperion), Wallace (VAIA) & Shahan (Talent) - but it was CPO's contribution of the red-blooded hour-long Symphony No. 1 in D Minor with Leon Botstein that knocked me sideways. Mahler had dismissed the work out of hand, it seems. I have been waiting with enforced patience for CPO to follow up with Walter's Second Symphony. Incidentally I should also mention, curiosity value or not, Walter's two-piano arrangement of Mahler's Resurrection (Naxos).

The Violin Sonata is very much a sonata for violin and piano with neither player ancillary to the other. It's in a romantically high flown yet not over-boiled style with some indebtedness to Brahms. Earnest it may be but this is no obstacle to Walter prefacing the middle movement's dolce-dolce writing with what amounts to a gawky troll tango. It's a clever touch and carried off in a very seemly way. While there is ardor in spades in the first movement, the 'Moderato' finale flirts with some florally static salon-style pages before, in its last few moments, asserting itself. Interesting but not transfixing. The other three recordings of the Sonata come with works by other composers. This Naxos disc introduces listeners to Walter's four-movement Piano Quintet; a first recording as far as I can see. This is an exultant work with plenty of joyous activity for each of the five musicians. It is demonstrative, tense and brimming with intense cantabile. Here the finale makes for a convincing conclusion; more so than the equivalent movement in the Sonata. It should appeal to those who are already captivated by the quintets by Vierne and Medtner. Both performances are more than capable with the listener gaining the feeling that the players know the music well enough to enjoy putting it across rather than having to concentrate on forming the notes.

The notes, in German and English, are accompanied by a well selected photograph of the young, confident, and pursed-lipped Walter adorning the booklet cover.

– MusicWeb International (Rob Barnett)