"Waves and Particles" is Pulitzer- and Grammy-winning composer John Luther Adams’s beautifully shimmery, virtuosic string quartet, performed by the incredible, illustrious JACK Quartet. Adams’s music has been performed by such prominent ensembles as the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. JACK Quartet has been deemed “superheroes of the new music world” (Boston Globe) and “the go-to quartet for contemporary music, tying impeccable musicianship to intellectual ferocity” (The Washington Post).

Beaufort Scales is Grammy-nominee and Pulitzer finalist composer Christopher Cerrone’s lush, dramatic, alluring music for women’s voices and electronics, performed by the acclaimed Lorelei Ensemble. Its text is drawn from the Beaufort Wind Force Scale (an early-19th-century wind speed measure), as well as writings by Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Anne Carson. Cerrone’s music has been commissioned and performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, LA Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, the Louisville Symphony, Third Coast Percussion, violinist Jennifer Koh, pianist Shai Wosner, and many other noted ensembles and individuals. The Lorelei Ensemble, praised for its “full-bodied and radiant sound” (The New York Times) and “stunning precision of harmony, intonation … spectacular virtuosity” (Gramophone), has recorded the music of numerous living composers, as well as historical works by William Billings, Guillaume Du Fay, Alfred Schnittke, Toru Takemitsu, and many others.

“Darkness and Scattered Light” presents celebrated Pulitzer- and Grammy-winning composer John Luther Adams’s mesmerizing; elegant; virtuosic music for double bass—two solos and a work for five basses—written for and all performed by bassist extraordinaire Robert Black. “This is one of the most beautiful albums I have heard in years.... It would be hard to imagine a better match of composer and performer than John Luther Adams and Robert Black.”(David Lang; Pulitzer-winning composer); John Luther Adams’s music has been performed by such prominent ensembles as the New York Philharmonic; the Chicago Symphony; the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the Seattle Symphony; the and the JACK?Quartet. Cold Blue Music has released ten recordings of his work; including Houses of the Wind; Arctic Dreams; Lines Made by Walking; Everything That Rises; and The Wind in High Places. “John Luther Adams ... one of the most original musical thinkers of the new century.” (Alex Ross; The New Yorker) “His music . . . is an elemental experience.” (The Guardian). Robert Black tours the world collaborating with composers; musicians; and other artists. A founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars; his recent collaborations have been with Philip Glass; Eve Beglarian; and Joan Tower. “No one on the planet can make the double bass sing; dance; sound like a drum; spin like a top; like Robert Black. Robert has single-handedly reinvented the technique and repertoire of the Double Bass; bringing it bursting into the 21st century.” (Michael Gordon)

Peter Garland’s “The Basketweave Elegies” is an enchanting nine-movement work for solo vibraphone, performed by celebrated percussionist William Winant. Garland writes: “I want to write music that is well-made, sturdy, useful, and beautiful—like a basket.” Peter Garland is a composer, world traveler, musicologist, and writer whose music — often cited as an example of “radical consonance” — is always informed by his well-traveled ear and strong sense of personal vision. He studied music composition with Harold Budd and James Tenney and maintained long friendships with Lou Harrison, Conlon Nancarrow, Paul Bowles, and Dane Rudhyar. Cold Blue Music has released seven recordings of his work, including “Three Dawns,” “Moon Viewing Music,” “String Quartets,” and “After the Wars.”

“Garland’s music seems to be about the sheer expressive power of sound itself … ” (Fanfare) “Garland is an avatar of an experimental American tradition … a composer of mesmerizing music.”(Kyle Gann, Chamber Music magazine) “Garland is … a marvelous artist. I admire his work a lot” (Harold Budd). Performer William Winant, a Grammy-nominated percussionist who has performed with some of the most innovative and creative musicians of our time, including John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Keith Jarrett, Anthony Braxton, James Tenney, Cecil Taylor, George Lewis, Steve Reich and Musicians, Yo-Yo Ma, Frederic Rzewski, Ursula Oppens, Joan LaBarbara, Sonic Youth, and Kronos Quartet. He has appeared on a number of releases on the Cold Blue Music label.

Michael Byron’s “Halcyon Days” is music for marimbas, xylophones, vibraphones, glockenspiels, tubular bells, maracas, and piano. Except for the final piece (from 2016), these pieces are from a previously under-documented period of Byron’s work—the mid-seventies, when he composed unique, remarkable minimalist-styled works. This album treats us to clangorous clouds of polyrhythms and simple, direct, quiet works, both of which explore rich harmonies and bespeak a sense transcendent motionlessness.

Composer Michael Byron’s music tends to be harmonically rich, rhythmically detailed, and virtuosic. It’s often praised for its ability to create dense constructions out of relatively limited means: His works have been performed and recorded by such notable new-music champions as Sarah Cahill, Joseph Kubera, William Winant, FLUX Quartet, Kathleen Supové, and Thomas Buckner. Cold Blue Music has released five of his previous albums, including “Bridges of Pearl and Dust.” William Winant is an extremely active percussionist who SPIN magazine called “the avant-elite’s go-to percussionist for more than 35 years … ”

Lisa Moore is one of NYC’s top new-music pianists whose work the New York Times praised as “brilliant and searching … beautiful and impassioned … lustrous.” Vicki Ray, whose playing has been described as “phenomenal and fearless,” is Los Angeles’s leading new-music pianist. Aron Kallay is one of L.A.’s top new-music pianists whose playing the Los Angeles Times has described as “exquisite … alive, worthy of our wonder.” The William Winant Percussion Group is an ensemble made up of some of California’s best young percussionists.

“Houses of the Wind” is a haunting, five-movement electro-acoustic piece that critically acclaimed composer Adams created from his field recording of an aeolian harp (wind harp) played by the Arctic winds 30 years ago. Over the years since he made this field recording, both the concept and the sound of the aeolian harp have inspired many of his celebrated instrumental works—including his six string quartets. In 2021 he went back to his original aeolian harp recording and sculpted each movement (or variation) of “Houses of the Wind” from the sounds on that tape, using voice layering, time stretching, and pitch manipulation as his primary compositional tools.

John Luther Adams’ music has won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award and has been performed by such prominent ensembles as the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and the JACK Quartet. Cold Blue Music has released nine recordings of his work, including “Arctic Dreams,” “Lines Made by Walking,” “Everything That Rises,” and “The Wind in High Places.” His memoir, “Silences So Deep,” was published in 2020.

Review

I’m not going to beat about the bush: I love this recording!

I have been an enthusiastic admirer of the American composer, John Luther Adams, for some years now and, whilst I am not naïve enough to assume his music will be to everyone’s taste, I think this must rank amongst his very best. Years of living in extreme isolation in the North American Arctic have pared down JLA’s music to its simplest and most fundamental qualities and this latest project is no exception. In a very real sense, Houses of the Wind should have a co-composer credit for the wind itself as it is shaped out of field recordings made by the composer of the sound of an aeolian harp in 1989. In the process of transferring the tapes of his old field recordings, Adams became captivated by the sound of a ten and a half minute long tape which provided both the inspiration and the basis for the present composition.

All five movements use that ten and half minute recording as their source material with Adams stretching out the sound, layering and transposing it to evoke what I presume are the characters of different types of arctic wind.

Just about every piece by John Luther Adams deploys some kind of natural acoustic effect to generate music and he directly relates this to his passionate concern for the Earth’s environment. These natural sounds used in this way also tend to have a far reaching psychological effect on the listener. In the case of this piece, that effect goes well beyond some pleasant noises produced by an aeolian harp and tunes into a place where man and nature meet or perhaps it might be better to speak of where man can realise his place within nature that he tends to neglect and abuse.

There is a risk that Houses of the Wind will sound, on the basis of this description, like the kind of music encountered at a spa wellness hotel. Such an idea should be banished forthwith! JLA’s experience of working with overtone series on string instruments in his wonderful string quartets means his musical imagination hears in what must be a really wonderful original recording all sorts of aural miracles whether it be vast, limitless landscapes in the bass register or angelic singing voices like the ghosts of violins in the treble. There is a profound absence of hurry which despite each piece only lasting the ten and half minutes of the field recording produces the effect of something genuinely timeless. The timeframe is set by things like the gradual, patient unfurling of an overtone sequence. JLA has contrived to create music that makes us feel we are eavesdropping on the music making of nature herself. What is particularly impressive is that a distinct voice is heard through the music even though in no way does it resemble a human voice. Or rather it is the voice upon which all human voices rest since it is the foundation of all sound. Of course, this is sleight of hand because this is after all a composition by a human being - but a human being wonderfully in tune with the world around him. Thankfully for us a human who can translate that attunement into music in which even our dull ears can hear something of what he hears.

John Luther Adams’ genius lies in taking ideas that often look dry or uninspiring and allowing the most vivid kind of life to shine from them. I have often found that after listening to his music, my experience of all other music seems cleansed and revitalised. I have this experience listening to Houses of the Wind.

The composer has written of how many of his pieces for more traditional instruments were inspired by listening to aeolian harps during his years resident in the Arctic and there is a moving sense in this composition of Luther Adams paying back for that inspiration.

--MusicWeb International (David McDade)

Arctic Dreams is critically celebrated composer John Luther Adams's uniquely beautiful and magical seven-movement work for a quartet of voices and a quartet of strings, with layers of digital delay that create 32-part canonic textures. It is dedicated to the composers friend the late writer Barry Lopez, and titled after one of Lopez's greatest books. The work, like most of Adamss works, reflects the composers passion for natures elemental forces. Adams writes about the piece: As in several of my later string quartets, all the string sounds are produced by natural harmonics and open strings. The sung text is composed of the names of Arctic places, plants, birds, weather, and the seasons, in the languages of the Iñupiat and Gwichin peoples of Alaska. John Luther Adams's music has won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award and has been performed by such prominent ensembles as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Seattle Symphony, JACK Quartet, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Cold Blue Music has released eight recordings devoted to his work, including Lines Made by Walking, Everything That Rises, and The Wind in High Places. The performers: Synergy Vocals is a critically acclaimed vocal ensemble that has recorded music by Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, David Lang, Luciano Berio, John Adams, Arvo Pärt, and many others and performed with the Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco Symphonies and the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics. Their performances and recordings have been deemed amazing (New York Times); beautiful, haunting (Gramophone); and dazzling (The Observer). With Synergy is a quartet of notable string players: violinist Robin Lorentz, violist Ron Lawrence, cellist Michael Finckel, and bassist Robert Black.

Two exuberant, beautiful solo piano pieces: the three-movement Three Dawns, based on poems by Jean-Joseph Rabéarivelo, and the nine-movement Bush Radio Calling, written for the music-theater work Just Them Walking, by New Zealand's avant-garde theater company Red Mole. Both works are elegantly and spiritedly performed by Ron Squibbs. Peter Garland is a composer, world traveler, musicologist, and writer whose musicoften cited as an example of radical consonanceis always informed by his well-traveled ear and strong sense of personal vision. He studied music composition with Harold Budd and James Tenney and maintained long friendships with Lou Harrison, Conlon Nancarrow, Paul Bowles, and Dane Rudhyar. Cold Blue Music has released seven recordings of his work, including Moon Viewing Music, String Quartets, and After the Wars. Pianist Ron Squibbs is a music theory professor (UConn) and a specialist in the music of Iannis Xenakis. His previous recordings include albums of solo piano music by Dane Rudhyar and Joji Yuasa.

A 2021 GRAMMY Nominee for Best Small Ensemble/Chamber Music Performance!

“Lines Made by Walking” is a uniquely beautiful and magical recording of two string quartets—"Lines Made by Walking” and “untouched”—by influential, critically celebrated composer John Luther Adams, performed by the renowned JACK Quartet. Both works reflect Adams’ passion for nature’s elemental forces. The release of this recording coincides with Farrar, Straus & Giroux’s publication of Adams’ autobiography, “Silences So Deep.” John Luther Adams’ music has won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award and has been performed by such prominent ensembles as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Seattle Symphony, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Cold Blue Music has released seven recordings devoted to his work, including “Everything That Rises” and “The Wind in High Places.” Deemed “superheroes of the new music world” by the Boston Globe and chosen as Musical America’s 2018 Ensemble of the Year, JACK Quartet is “the go-to quartet for contemporary music, tying impeccable musicianship to intellectual ferocity.” (Washington Post) The award-winning JACK tours and performs to critical acclaim throughout the world.

Ever wonder what two centuries colliding sounds like? “Separation Songs” is a haunting album-length work for two string quartets. It juxtaposes and weaves together an array of 18th-century composer William Billings’s hymn tunes, altering them via real-time-generated variations as the piece unfolds. Both quartet parts are performed via overdubbing by the noted new-music-championing Eclipse Quartet. “The Eclipse [Quartet] is LA’s answer to 20th-century and present-day music.” (“HuffPost”). Composer Matt Sargent’s music has been described by critics as “a powerfully organic experience” (“Sequenza21”) that “uses bare resources to establish a bounded and essential space” (“The Wire”)

“Celesta” is a suite of a dozen quietly transcendent, gem-like celesta solos by noted Los Angeles composer Michael Jon Fink, who also performs them. As each piece unfolds, revealing itself through elegantly fashioned variation, the listener is drawn into a highly nuanced, lyrical sound world. Taken as a whole, the collection creates its own graceful musical arc, and is certainly among the largest statements ever composed for the celesta alone. The album was recorded on one of Los Angeles’s finest five-octave Schiedmayer celestas. Fink’s usually quiet, lyrical music has been described by the “Los Angeles Times” as “lustrous,” “metaphysically tinged” and “unapologetically tranquil.” LA Weekly has written that his music is “of ethereal simplicity . . . he has shaped and refined his spare style greatly—it is distinctly his own.”

“Everything That Rises” is a uniquely beautiful and magical hour of music for string quartet, performed by the celebrated, award-winning JACK Quartet. The composer writes about the piece: “Each musician is a soloist, playing throughout. Time floats and the lines spin out, always rising, in acoustically perfect intervals that grow progressively smaller as they spiral upward…until the music dissolves into the soft noise of the bows, sighing.” “‘Everything That Rises’ is art without artifice, and its beauty transports the listener.” (New York Classical Review) “‘Everything That Rises” finds Mr. Adams exploring dissonance and just-intonation tuning, in the gentlest of ways.” (The New York Times) "JACK Quartet, superheroes of the new music world.” (Boston Globe) John Luther Adams, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Music and the 2015 Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition, has been described by The New Yorker’s Alex Ross as “one of the most original musical thinkers of the new century.” Adams, whose music is deeply rooted in the natural world, has worked with many prominent performers and venues.

River of 1,000 Streams is a wild new piece for piano and up to 11 ''cascading echoes'' that stack up to create dense sonic torrents, as well as more delicate textures. Performed by renowned pianist Vicki Ray, this virtuosic music rumbles from the piano's lowest notes up through its highest in a succession of lovely ever-drifting harmonies. Daniel Lentz has been a fixture on Southern California's new-music scene for more than 45 years, prolifically creating a very personal music that reflects and refracts various experimental and post-experimental trends. Hi smusic is both relentlessly propulsive and lushly beautiful, and it may hint at pop/jazz harmonies or toy with late Romantic gestures, while always offering Lentz's distinct musical vision and reveling in a joy of music-making. Grammy nominated new music champion Vickie Ray, a founding member of the California EAR Unit and Piano Spheres, has perfomred with the Los Angeles philharmonic and many other groups.

Bhajan is a free-wheeling yet meditative four-section work for electric violin and live electronics, which one critic described as “a pas de deux between violin and electronics,” was written for and features noted new-music violinist Robin Lorentz. Nicholas Chase has headlined festivals in Europe and the US as a composer, performer, and improviser, His interactive, site-specific composition NOVA: Transmission was exhibited as part of the Whitney Biennial in New York and his Ngoma Lungundu opened the New Music+ Festival at the Jana ek Academy, Czech Republic. He was an inaugural Composer Fellow at the 2011 international Other Minds Festival in San Francisco and in 2015 was honored by the International Center for Japanese Culture, Tokyo, Japan.

Critically acclaimed composer John Luther Adams, who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Music, offers the first recordings of three of his recent string works: two string quartets, featuring the much-lauded JACK Quartet, and a four-movement work for a choir of 48 cellos. This is stunning, beautiful, sometimes monolithic, sometimes intimate music that is in a state of constant, subtle motion.

Post-minimalist John Luther Adams--not to be confused with "Nixon in China" composer John Adams--creates luminous musical worlds inspired by nature, particularly the landscapes of his adopted home, Alaska. THE PLACE WE BEGAN contains four evocative electroacoustic pieces that rework fragments of forgotten reel-to-reel tapes recorded by the Adams in the early `70s. Sculpting intriguing new soundscapes from furtive experiments in acoustic feedback and found sounds, Adams breathes new life into the material as a film documentarist would with old photographs and film footage.