The second, and perhaps more meditative, installment in the Bang on Can All-Stars' acclaimed commissioned composer series, More Field Recordings once again maps a strange new terrain where found sound, samples and archival audio collide with contemporary classical music, written by a wide range of artists and performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars. In keeping with the "ground rules" of the Field Recordings project, each composer was asked to go into the field of recorded sound itself — to find something old or record something new, and to respond with their own music, in dialogue with what they found. Featuring new works by Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire), Caroline Shaw, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Dan Deacon, Ben Frost and more, this two-disc set embraces the classical and electronic influences of the first Field Recordings collection (released on Cantaloupe in 2015) and extends its reach into futuristic worlds of ambient and ethereal sound. Special package exquisitely designed by artist Russell Mills, known for his work with Nine Inch Nails.

This release is Alarm Will Sound’s fifth full-length project with Cantaloupe Music, and precurses several performances throughout 2016. The six tracks on this album feature incidental variations on compositions by The Beatles, Charles Wuorinen, Edgard Varese, and more. Best described as postmodern classical music, this genre-bending ensemble doesn’t fail to entertain as they push the outer limits of the canon with this adventurous project. -----

REVIEWS:

The 23 members of Alarm Will Sound perform the provocative pieces playfully, inviting all sides of the modernism debate to lighten up and listen. Each work composed for the ensemble is easily digestible, running under seven minutes. Wolfgang Rihm’s Will Sound delivers in trickily spaced bursts, mostly centered around a sinewy saxophone line. The ensemble’s percussionists are in particularly fine form, rattling and skipping through unintuitive and complex rhythms.

– NPR

The comic portrait of screaming human faces on the album's cover poses a rhetorical question: Do we honestly still need to act scared by this modernist stuff? Over the course of their set, the Alarm Will Sound players and conductor Alan Pierson respond to this prompt by delivering pure modern-classical fun. The six pieces they’ve chosen speak different structural languages, though each one shares a desire to bring across a sense of wildness that is exuberant at heart.

– Pitchfork

Meredith Monk’s MEMORY GAME, as its title implies, is both a look back at a pivotal point in her storied career, and a richly layered portrait of how vocal music, under the guidance of an indefatigable master, can play with our expectations in poignant and compelling ways. Teaming up here with her renowned Vocal Ensemble (featuring Theo Bleckmann, Katie Geissinger and Allison Sniffin) and backed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Monk explores all-new arrangements of never-before-recorded selections from her award-winning sci-fi opera The Games, as well as new versions of several pieces originally released on Do You Be (1987) and Impermanence (2008). What emerges from MEMORY GAME is a suite of songs that flows with a remarkable narrative cohesion, stemming in large part from the composer’s willingness to revisit the past with an insatiably curious eye.

David Lang composed "love fail" in 2012 for the vocal quartet Anonymous 4; the work was conceived as a rumination on the timelessness of love, weaving together details from the story of Tristan and Isolde with more modern sources. This newly expanded choral arrangement, performed by the renowned Lorelei Ensemble and conducted by Beth Willer, adds haunting texture and power, as well as a more fully rounded sound, to Lang's austere original. Praised for their "impeccable musicality and pure-voiced precision" by the Boston Globe after the 2016 premiere of this version for women's chorus, Lorelei brings that same unmatched skill to the recording. From the hypnotic layers of the opening "he was and she was" to the almost devoutly meditative mood of "Head, Heart," there's an immediate sense of having captured an entirely new way of experiencing one of Lang's most soulful and mysterious works.

Co-composed by Lao Luo and Bong On A Can founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, Cloud River Mountain is an edgy cross-cultural collaboration between the Bang On A Can All-Stars and the extraordinary Chinese vocalist Gong Linna, whose dynamic voice covers a vast canvas of sonic colors. With an adventurous range that embraces Chinese folk, pop, and avant-garde art music (and has drawn comparisons to Bjork), Linna sings in both Mandarin and English over groove-driven melodies, punk-ish backbeats and lush soundscapes. Cloud River Mountain stirs ancient Chinese storytelling together with Western songwriting into a raucous musical mix, combining the mystical stories fo the past with the churning, clanging and sounds of the future.

Classical Music

Classical Music

The meeting of legendary Kronos Quartet and ground-breaking composer Michael Gordon has the feel of inevitability about it, but while both have been powerhouses in contemporary music from the 1980s onwards, it wasn’t until 2000 that Gordon wrote his first piece for string quartet, Potassium. Mutual respect and admiration has resulted in a productive collaboration, and this CD brings us the results.

Clouded Yellow uses a certain amount of electronic manipulation of the quartet sound, from the bird-like falling sounds in the opening and some textural effects later on, but the strings are distinctive enough. The ‘flying’ feel in the music relates to a title that refers to a species of butterfly that migrates to England.

Potassium takes some of its ‘blown-out’ sound from an earlier work, Industry for cello and electronics. The strings are sent though distortion filters in the opening, their downward and upward glissandi a heightened sequence of cadences that hold both angst and a counterbalancing sense of logical inevitability. At the halfway point a related but new energy starts up, with violin glissandi now fast and punchy over ostinato notes from viola and cello. This takes on a magical tonal aspect, out of which the opening glissando ‘theme’ emerges with new meaning. Too much beauty cannot be allowed to survive for long however, and the previous energy bursts in to deliver a spectacular coda, the final gesture of which is a kind of musical reaching for the skies.

The Sad Park is a legacy of the tragic events of 11th September 2001 when the World Trade Centre towers in New York were destroyed in that infamous terrorist attack. A recording is used of children’s voices from pre-school children who lived in the shadow of the towers, recounting what they had seen and experienced. In the first of four movements the voice is stretched into a haunting whale-song over which the quartet weaves chords in an ostinato rhythm. The second movement is partly fragmented, but its repetitions inspire a lyrical keening from the strings. The voice is given a momentary clarity on which the strings comment with related material out of which voices return with a rhythmic character that takes us into the third movement. The voices here are stretched beyond recognition, to my ears developing an introvert but everlasting cry. The final movement throws in extra effects for the quartet, an octave pedal adding extra bass and distortion turning the music into something akin to a weighty rock-band. The association with voices and string quartet takes us instantly to Different Trains by Steve Reich, and the one probably wouldn’t exist without the other, but Michael Gordon’s treatment is disturbing and personal – a highly effective expression of new life in the midst of horror and death.

Exalted for string quartet and choir is performed here with the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, on whose website we are told that the text used is “the English translation of the first word of the Mourner’s Kaddish, one of the most important and central prayers in the Jewish liturgy written 2500 years ago in Aramaic, the language spoken at that time. The text of Exalted, a lament in memory of Mr. Gordon’s father, consists entirely of the Kaddish’s first four words–Yi-ga-dal, v’yis ka-dash, sh’may, and ra-bo.” This connects to each of the other pieces here for one reason or another, but in particular to The Sad Park as “it very much draws a line to the people who died in the towers.” This is a passionate lament, filled with a drive and energy that only lets up in the final dissolution into descending clusters in the voices.

This is a thought provoking release, but one that sees the Kronos Quartet still on top form, and Michael Gordon’s creativity very much an unstoppable force. Poetic, powerful and moving by turns, this is a release no self-respecting contemporary music fan should be without.

– MusicWeb International (Dominy Clements)

Shelter is the result of an unusual collaboration among Bang on a Can's founding composers Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe. Scored for three sopranos and a 17-piece ensemble, the project explores what "shelter" means in different cultures. Ensemble Signal's debut recording, under music director Brad Lubman and producer Michael Riesman, was originally commissioned for the Next Wave Festival by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and premiered with Trio Mediaeval in Cologne, Germany in 2005.

Aleksandra Vrebalov's The Sea Ranch Songs was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by the community of The Sea Ranch in celebration of the California retreat's fiftieth birthday. The music does a magnificent job of connecting with the nature, spirit, and architecture of this magical landscape. This music is more like a multimedia work. The music features rarely documented sounds from the Northern California coastal community and it's nature. The work is paired with a cinematic exploration on a bonus DVD directed by videographer Andrew Lyndon. "The Sea Ranch idea on a global scale might be utopian, but through music, we praise it's beauty and affirm it's urgent relevance in our wounded world, so much in need of healing." (Aleksandra Vrebalov) Kronos Quartet consists of violinists David Harrington and John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt, and cellist Sunny Yang. The group has a west coast performance schedule to be announced following this release.

Classical Music

Internationally renowned composer and guitarist Kaki King co-produced her tenth album, Modern Yesterdays, with sound designer Chloe Alexandra Thompson and recording engineer Arjan Miranda. It's her first full-length studio project since the 2015 release of The Neck Is A Bridge to the Body ("bursting with masterclass talent," as reviewed in PopMatters), and her first to be recorded almost entirely on acoustic guitar. Rich in post-classical, jazz and blues-flavored motifs, as well as electronic and electro-acoustic influences, Modern Yesterdays mines a poignant, meditative arc that not only fits the mood of these turbulent times, but also once again establishes King as a tirelessly inventive composer whose imagination extends well beyond the sonic limits of her chosen instrument.

As "arresting a figure in contemporary classical and experimental new music as he is in jazz (New York Times)," and a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship in 2017, Tyshawn Sorey has carved out his own territory as a musician and composer whose range of vision, emotion and visceral power is a driving and defining force behind a young Black vanguard in new music. This pristinely recorded double-album collaboration with the vaunted chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound documents two unique works — the stately, still For George Lewis (dedicated to the legendary avant garde trombonist and composer) and the cinematic, sweeping Autoschediasms (inspired by the real-time improvisational "conductions" of Butch Morris, with a special nod to Anthony Braxton's "language music" system). Taken together, these performances — part of which were recorded in a video chat during the pandemic — find the composer testing the limits of the ensemble's imagination and concentration, and paint a wide-angle sonic canvas that is by turns taut, trenchant, and profoundly moving.

Back in April 2014 at Carnegie's Zankel Hall, Augustin Hadelich's performance of David Lang's 'mystery sonatas' was praised by the New York Times as a riveting display of “magisterial poise and serene control.” That same magic penetrates this starkly beautiful recording of the work, played by Hadelich on the exquisite 1723 “ex-Kiesewetter” Stradivari, on loan to him by its current owners since 2011. Lang based his 'mystery sonatas' on the famous pieces by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, but with a modern twist. “I decided to make my own virtuosic pieces about my most intimate, most spiritual thoughts,” he explains, “[but] mine are not about Jesus, and the violin is not retuned between movements. I did keep one of Biber's distinctions. He divides Jesus's life into three phases—the joyous, the sorrowful, and the glorious. The central pieces of my mystery sonatas are called 'joy,' 'sorrow,' and 'glory,' but these are all quiet, internal, reflective states of being.”

When Michael Gordon's Timber, scored for six amplified wooden 2-by-4s, premiered in 2009, it brought the physicality and endurance of percussion performance to a new level. In the liner notes for Slagwerk Den Haag's recording of the piece, released on Cataloupe Music in 2011, Gordon described a connection to the work of shamanist author Carlos Castaneda, whose self-imposed spirit journey in the desert could wipe the brain clean and "bring on visions." Newly recorded by Mantra Percussion and reworked by an A-list of producers and DJs, Gordon's deep exploration into the extreme possibilities of rhythm gets the full electronic treatment on Timber Remixed. This album contains six key remixes by Squarepusher, Oneohtrix Point Never, Tim Hecker, Johann Johannsson, Fennesz and Hauschka.

Commissioned by the Japan Society in New York and the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan center in Japan, David Lang's note to a friend is inspired by the famous letter written by short story author Ryunosuke Akutagawa to a fellow writer, announcing his intention to take his own life. Conceived as a chamber opera for solo vocalist and string quartet, the work is also the perfect vehicle for singer Theo Blackmann, who brings a profound emotional weight to his performance, in collaboration with the inimitable Attacca string quartet. Content warning: This recording contains references to suicide and depression, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need suicide- or mental health-related crisis support, or are worried about someone else, please call or text 988 or visit the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline's chat to connect with a trained crisis counselor.

Formed in 2020 and comprised of veterans of New York City's vital contemporary music community, the Anzu Quartet - Olivia de Prato, Ashley Bathgate, Ken Thomson and Karl Larson - is an ensemble dedicated to the music of our time and the recent canon. The quartet's first full-length studio release of premiere recordings features new works by Thomson (?) and fellow composer Anna Webber (?, which lends the album it's title). Relentless, kinetic and emotive, Thomson's ? reflects the pace and anxieties of modern life, while Webber's ? explores the liminal space between classical contemporary music and experimental jazz. Both works, composed between 2019 and 2022, highlight the quartet's prowess as interpreters and performers of demanding, modern repertoire, and fulfill Anzu's mission of commissioning and promoting new repertoire for the instrumentation of Messiaen's elemental "Quartet for the End of Time," a new recording of which the group will release later in 2025.

26 Little Deaths - the new album from composer, singer and violinist Carla Kihlstedt and the contemporary ensemble Present Music - celebrates the macabre wit of iconic writer and illustrator Edward Gorey (1925-2000), whose 100th birthday fell on February 22, 2025. The album is an hour-long set of 26 miniatures for singing violinist and chamber orchestra, inspired by Gorey's macabre children's book, The Gashlycrumb Tinies. Following in the footsteps of Hanns Eisler and Kurt Weill, who moved seamlessly between art song, pop song and cabaret, Kihlstedt has created a work that captures the pathos, humor and wit of Gorey's indelible images.

In celebration of their 25th year together as one of the most adventurous and influential percussion ensembles in contemporary music, So Percussion announces the release of 25x 25. In keeping with the group's forward-looking mission, this 8-disc box set is not a retrospective; more characteristically, it's a stand-alone listening experience, featuring more than 8 hours of entirely new and previously unreleased recordings, with each piece written for, in collaboration with, and premiered by So Percussion. Over the last 25 years, the members of So - Jason Treuting, Adam Sliwinski, Josh Quillen, and Eric Cha-Beach - have been hailed for their gripping performances and wildly creative collaborations. Cantaloupe Music (the label launched by the Bang on a Can collective, which released So's first-ever album in 2004), is pleased to offer this collection to longtime fans and newcomers alike. It's both a comprehensive portrait, and a forecasting of where contemporary chamber music is heading.

Avant-jazz pianist and composer Matthew Shipp has been referred to as the "elder statesman" of the art form by DownBeat magazine, but the reach and scope of his music extends much further than mere genre. The Cosmic Piano delivers on that promise - a solo recording that taps into the deeper exploratory potential of the instrument, with Shipp channeling a lifetime of knowledge and a daunting array of influences into nearly an hour of spontaneous, enlightened and joyfully rendered music.

When composer Jeffrey Brooks premiered The Memory Palace at Bang on a Can's summer festival at MASS MoCA in July 2023, he'd perfected the presentation of what we now know as the Stein-o-caster - a new form of prepared piano, fitted with pickups, that he conceived and designed the previous year with electronics engineer Greg Lee. As a featured instrument on two pieces from this new recording, the Stein-o-caster sets the tone for the aural atmospherics and soundscapes that transport the music into fresh dimensions of space and time. An artist of wide-ranging musical tastes, Brooks has also held a lifelong affinity for the electric guitar (Jimi Hendrix is a personal hero), so in the context of The Memory Palace, it made sense to approach longtime collaborator Mark Stewart - in-house guitarist for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and musical director for Paul Simon's touring band - for a specially commissioned piece. This became "Santuario," scored for double-neck electric guitar, and a mini-epic of sonic exploration in it's own right.

Like his Pulitzer-winning work the little match girl passion, David Lang's 'poor hymnal' tries to get to the core of what a religious experience can be. "What I love about hymnals," the composer writes in his liner notes to the CD, "is that they're a catalog of things a community of worshippers can agree on - a catalog that can be sung. And what the worshippers are singing about matters." 'poor hymnal' is a concert-length work written for the multiple GRAMMY Award-winning chamber choir The Crossing, conducted by Donald Nally. Lang constructed the text by stitching together lines, phrases and poignant utterances from sources as varied as the Old Testament, Mahatma Gandhi and Tolstoy - to name just a few. As Lang explains: "This piece is trying to say: The reason we are coming together is to remember how important we are to each other, and to remember how important it is that we take care of each other."

ART DECADE is a wide-ranging collaboration that unites composer, producer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Evan Ziporyn with Toronto's renowned ContaQt ensemble, led by arranger and percussionist Jerry Pergolesi. Featuring all-new interpretations of 'art rock' and ambient classics from the early '70s psych-prog output of King Crimson, David Bowie's "Berlin trilogy," and Brian Eno's Ambient 1-4 series, ART DECADE is more than just a tribute album. "Our goal is not to 'elevate' or legitimize this music," Ziporyn and Pergolesi reveal in the album's liner notes. "It's towering artistic achievement and profound influence on an entire generation is self-evident. Instead, by revisiting and inhabiting these groundbreaking works, we hope to ensure they remain a vibrant, celebrated part of the musical repertoire, retaining their punkish sense of gleeful adventure as they continue to subvert expectations and venture into uncharted territory."

Dark Currents is the third full-length recording by Splinter Reeds, the West Coast's premier reed quintet featuring Kyle Bruckmann (English horn), Bill Kalinkos, Nicki Roman, Jeff Anderle (bass clarinet) and Dana Jessen. The album opens with Michael Gordon's majestic "Tall Grass," which cascades upwards into undulating waves of melody before spreading outward on a moody canvas that surges with tension and emotion. By contrast, Paula Mathussen's "Antenna Studies" combines ambient soundscapes and found sounds, while the musicians quietly tease their instruments with breath control and percussive pad strikes as a somber melodic figure gradually begins to take shape. Taken together, these two 20-minute performances propel the listener forward on an ever-changing journey, by turns hypnotic, ecstatic, surreal and spooky, that tests the pre-conceived boundaries of modern chamber music.

Ever wondered where the worlds of progressive bluegrass music and microtonal synthesis might intersect? The EZRA ensemble is game to answer the question on their adventurous second album, Earth to EZRA. Convening in an intimate studio in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, the core quartet - composer and multi-instrumentalist Jesse Jones (guitars and vocals), Jacob Jolliff (mandolin), Max Allard (banjo) and Craig Butterfield (double bass) - teamed up with musical polymath Mark Stewart and keyboardist Xak Bjerken to craft a complex recording that is by turns whimsical, uplifting, haunting and otherworldly. And you can dance to it. More succinctly, Elizabeth Ogonek describes the project, in her liner notes for the CD package, as "a wild, surreal, and totally joyful album - a 'cycle' to be listened to from beginning to end." The sonic beast at the center of Earth to EZRA is a microtonal organ designed by David Rothenberg and built by synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog in the mid 1960s. The 478-key instrument divides the octave into 31 equal parts, but was never actually functional until 2023, when electronic music scholar and instrument builder Travis Johns began the meticulous process of making the organ playable.