2009 marked the 45th anniversary of Terry Riley's minimalist manifesto In C, and to celebrate the occasion Innova offers a group of "remixes" from 15 individual composers and one collaborating duo. Remixes are the fashion for today's classical composers steeped in contemporary pop music and DJ culture, and happily, each of these 16 tracks treats Riley's material with affection and high spirits while projecting their own individual viewpoints.

Certain ones stand out. Jack Dangers' "In C--Semi-Detached" launches into In C more or less according to Hoyle before slow-moving, whooshing textures and sustained chords slowly enter the fray. Mason Bates, in his "Masonic" persona, makes liberal use of popping percussive effects and gorgeous, strategically-placed piano chords, presenting Riley's repeating patterns largely in reverse sequence. DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid's remix is essentially Riley, laced with sustained timbres and subtle rhythmic manipulation. Daniel Bernard Roumain's "Zachary's Dream" features the violinist/composer emerging center-stage in the final few minutes. Perhaps the Mikael Karlsson/Rob Stephenson collaboration "Xenoglossia" strays farthest from the source, with its almost static transparency and collage-like juxtapositions. String-like sonorities in lower and higher registers shift and wander around without going anywhere in David Lang's "simple mix".

Best of all, however, is the original In C itself, where the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble under Bill Ryan presents one of the most colorful, texturally varied, rhythmically incisive, and intensely expressive renditions I've ever experienced, live or on disc. It may be brief (20 minutes), but it has a lot to say. If you're an In C fan, you'll surely want this stimulating and exceptionally well-engineered release.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Hyper-virtuosic Vietnamese traditional music enters the experimental world with a bang. Van-Anh Vanessa Vo and Kronos Quartet are worthy matches for this daring, iconoclastic crossover that pushes both into new and thrilling territory.

This set contains Stereo and Mono recordings.
Selections recorded in the 1940s and 1950s. This set contains both stereo and monaural recordings. It also includes a lecture on just intonation by Harry Partch and some conversations with the composer.

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'THE Hub, with a growing reputation as undiscovered gems, are rapidly developing a dedicated cult following.' BBC Radio 3 THE Hub is a band whose appetite for far flung sounds often defies categorization and whose members, Sean Noonan, Tim Dahl, Dan Magay play with the conviction and ferocity of men on a mission. A look at their recent European tour schedule indicates that they could be on the road as often as AC/DC. After initially shocking audiences with their eclectic array of original compositions, THE Hub have earned a loyal fan base worldwide. Hub fans have even been known to travel up to six hours to see them perform. So who is THE Hub? 'Maniacally exhilarating, gripping in it's precision and energy, a real breath of fresh air.' John Fordham - The Guardian (U.K) THE Hub is creating a new movement in jazz joining diverse music listeners from the hard core/metal, punk, new music, and electronic music scenes. Their latest album release 'Trucker' is another existential leap that is described as, 'Clearly a totally new form of music with an aggressive heavy metal touch belied by a jazz sensibility and control.' Jeremy Hurewitz - Prague Post 'Trucker' comes straight out of the Brooklyn underground music scene where they create a sonic amalgam of hip-hop, hardcore, punk, funk, and freeform jazz improvisation. All of these modes lead to music with originality . 'Trucker' is now available in record stores worldwide providing an irresistible force for progressive music listeners everywhere.

Ken Field's Revolutionary Snake: Year of the Snake

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Giving voice to poetry, and poetry to the voice

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This debut album from the John Yao Quintet signals the definitive arrival of trombonist and composer, John Yao. Demonstrating a broad textural palette and drawing from an array of stylistic influences, Yao explores the concept of opposing forces. In the Now is a musical journey beyond conventional jazz form and structure, with the ensemble winding skillfully through a wide range of moods, colors, and textures.

Conceived and built in 1931 by musical forward-thinkers Leon Theremin and Henry Cowell, the Rhythmicon was a musical keyboard instrument. The online one made by Nick Didkovsky, of Dr. Nerve fame, in 2003 takes the instrument to it's next logical step. In the hands of some of today's leading sound artist/composers, the Virtual Rhythmicon makes music that shimmers, pulses and haunts with a beauty that would do it's more famous cousin, the theremin, proud.

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When Mobtown Modern Music Series curator Brian Sacawa invited Darryl Brenzel to adapt Igor Stravinsky's radical orchestral ballet "The Rite of Spring" for a modern 17-piece jazz big band, no one really knew what was going to happen. There were, after all, riots at the piece's 1913 Paris premiere. Fortunately, when Brenzel's creation was unveiled at Baltimore's Metro Gallery on May 12, 2010, the audience kept to their seats in rapt attention, consumed by a work as boldly unconventional as Stravinsky's original.

"• Partnering here with the ensemble Music from China, PRISM presents works by four Chinese-born American composers. • The Singing Gobi Desert reveals that saxophones and Chinese instruments have a natural, if unexpected, affinity. • For nearly 30 years, PRISM has stood at the vanguard of new music ensembles, commissioning works across a broad spectrum of styles, and demonstrating the saxophone’s versatility. • John Schaefer, host of WNYC’s “Soundcheck”, wrote the liner notes for this release."

Completed in 2008, Michael Hersch's 2-hour work for horn and cello, Last Autumn, has been described by the Philadelphia Inquirer as a "portrait of something too huge and undefinable, glorious and terrible, to be seen in anything more than glimpses." A work "whose riches defy the harmonic limitations of the instruments. ... Together, they created wild portraits of alienated togetherness."

Performed here by hornist Jamie Hersch and cellist Daniel Gaisford, for whom the piece was written, Last Autumn is the second in a series of evening-length works written by the composer over the past decade.

Constantly in search of new musical terrain, the PRISM Quartet celebrates its 30th anniversary with a groundbreaking recording: Heritage/Evolution, Volume 1. The 2 CD set features world premiere recordings of new works that draw on the saxophone’s cross-cultural heritage, composed and performed by six saxophonists who defy convention: Steve Lehman, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Tim Ries, Miguel Zenón, Dave Liebman and Greg Osby. Appending “Volume 1” to the title is a statement of intent: this is not a one-time project, but the first step in a major new initiative by the PRISM Quartet.

2014 2 X vinyl LP pressing release by Korean-American composer, vocalist, sonic surrealist Bora Yoon. Designed as an architectural journey through the chambers of the subconscious, each track on the album illuminates a different sonic space, which excavates the memories, insights, and intersections in which our greatest diamonds and demons are held. Sunken Cathedral traces death, life, rebirth and the cyclical/recombinant nature of the universe; the alchemical moment of transmutation where one medium becomes another.

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Speaking with a musical vocabulary that inflects the language of post-minimalism with Puerto Rican musical traditions, composer Dan Rom�n is a polyglot. His work connects at the roots through rhythm: obsessive ostinatos, juxtaposed patterns that create evolving permutations, the hypnotic character of a steady pulse. M�sica de Palladium, his innova debut, is peppered with quotes from songs and dances from these traditions, mingled with counterpoint, shifting metrics and poly-chords. Mr. Rom�n teaches composition, music theory and electronic music at Trinity College, Hartford, CT.

Sunken Cathedral is a multimedia album release by Korean-American composer, vocalist and sonic surrealist Bora Yoon. Designed as an architectural journey through the chambers of the subconscious, each track on the album illuminates a different sonic “space,” excavating memories, insights, and intersections in which are held our greatest diamonds and demons.

Featuring performances from Grammy-winning soprano Susan Narucki with New York's acclaimed Talea Ensemble, Poems of Sheer Nothingness presents world premiere recordings of vocal music by American composer Aaron Helgeson, introducing two new works that combine ancient poetry with music of the here and now. The first, "Poems of sheer nothingness," presents a song cycle commissioned by Narucki based on the poetry of early French troubadours and sung in their original Occitan, a beautiful yet almost forgotten romance language now revived in five intimate chamber settings for soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano. The second, "Notes on a page (of Sappho)," offers a musical reincarnation for soprano and eleven instruments of poetic fragments by provocative and erotic Greek poet Sappho in an English translation by Canadian poet Anne Carson. Both works feature archaic song texts whose once-florid music is now lost, leaving Helgeson's surreal and evocative sonic imagination and Narucki's subtly expressive voice to fill in the gaps made by the decay of time and memory. The result is a collection of vocal music that simultaneously once was, and could be again.

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