BRIAN FERNEYHOUGH - SHADOWTIME               NMC D123

The acclaimed British composer Brian Ferneyhough is best known for his orchestral, chamber, choral, vocal and piano works. Shadowtime, with a libretto by Charles Bernstein, is a ‘thought opera’ based on the work and life of the Jewish philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940). Benjamin was born in Berlin and died on the Spanish border while trying to escape Nazi Germany. In seven scenes, Shadowtime explores the major themes of Benjamin’s work, including connections between history, time, transience, timelessness, language and melancholy; the possibilities for a transformational leftist politics; the interconnectivity of language, things and the cosmos; and the role of dialectical materiality, aura, interpretation and translation in art. Beginning on the last evening of Benjamin’s life, Shadowtime projects an alternative course for what happened on that fateful night. This is a challenging and exuberant work by one of the world’s most adventurous and interesting composers. This double CD release is from a BBC recording of the July 2005 production at ENO and was recorded in collaboration with BBC Radio 3. The performers include Jurjen Hempel (conductor), Nicolas Hodges (Piano, speaker) and Mats Scheidegger (guitar). ‘Music of wonderful detail, with sometimes an extraordinarily powerful charge. Beneath his tangled modernist rigour Ferneyhough hides a passionate commitment to expression’ - The Guardian.

COLERIDGE-TAYLOR PERKINSON - A CELEBRATION     CEDILLE CDR 90000 087

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932-2004) studied at the Manhattan School of Music. He went on to compose and conduct scores for theatrical, television and documentary feature films (including A Warm December, starring Sidney Poitier), and also composed and arranged for jazz and popular artists such as Harry Belefonte and Marvin Gaye. He conducted orchestras all over the world and was music director or composer-in-residence for the Negro Ensemble Company, Alvin Ailey Dance Company, Dance Theatre of Harlem and several theatre groups. This versatile African American composer and conductor was co-founder of the Symphony of the New World and for a while was pianist for the Max Roach Jazz Quartet. This CD celebrates the life of innovative composer with world premiere recordings of orchestral, chamber, and solo instrumental works that showcase Perkinson’s distinctive blend of Baroque counterpoint; energetic, streamlined American Romanticism; elements of blues, spirituals, and black folk music; and a rhythmic ingenuity all his own. Performances are by the Chicago Sinfonietta and conductor Paul Freeman, Chicago’s New Black Repertory Ensemble Quartet, and distinguished soloists such as Ashley Horne and Rachel Handlin (violins), Renée Baker (viola) and Edward Moore (cello). The seven works include Perkinson’s early Sinfonietta No. 1 for Strings (reminiscent of both Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland), Grass (based on a poem by Carl Sandburg) and Quartet No. 1. This is accessible and resonant music that successfully fuses classical traditions with black musical styles such as spirituals and jazz.

THE COMPLETE 10-INCH SERIES FROM COLD BLUE   COLD BLUE MUSIC  CB0014

This boxed set of three CDs is reissue of the popular series of seven 10-inch vinyl extended-play discs that were released by Cold Blue in the early 1980s, during the label’s first incarnation. The adventurous music is wide-ranging in style, including process-driven works, carefully through-composed pieces, ambient soundscapes, and music that draws on influences from around the world. The instrumentation is also varied, with compositions for violins accompanied by gourd rattles to an ensemble of clay ocarinas and whistles and flutes, to works for piano (solo and duo), synthesizers, singers, speaking voices, cello, electric guitar and clarinet. One piece is, uniquely, for pedal steel guitar accompanied by multiple dobros. The groundbreaking composers revisited are Peter Garland (Matachin Dances), Michael Jon Fink (including Vocalise and Veil for Two Pianos), Barney Childs (Clay Music), Read Miller (Mile Zero Hotel and The Blueprint of a Promise), Chas Smith (After, Santa Fe, October ’68, and Scircura), Rick Cox (These Things Stop Breathing and Taken From Real Life) and Daniel Lentz (including Slow Motion Mirror and Dancing on the Sun). All the recordings were supervised by the composers and collectively make up an unusual and satisfying musical document of the place and time. ‘Decidedly cool - in hipness quotient and emotional temperament. Beguiling...’ - Santa Barbara Independent.

PHILIP GLASS - ORION   ORANGE MOUNTAIN MUSIC  OMM0021

Composer Philip Glass joins his own performance ensemble and featured guests Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Mark Atkins, Ashley MacIsaac, Wu Man, Gaurav Mazumdar, Foday Musa Suso, UAKTI and conductor Michael Riesman, in this recording of the premiere of Orion. The work was originally created for the 2004 Olympiad in Athens by Glass in collaboration with Mark Atkins, Ashley MacIsaac, Wu Man, Ravi Shankar, Foday Musa Suso and UAKTI. This dynamic piece reflects upon how all the earth’s many cultures share an awe and appreciation of the starry night time skies. Orion, the largest constellation in the night sky, can be seen at all times of year, from both hemispheres. Almost every civilisation has created myths and drawn inspiration from Orion, and the musicians and composers here used part of this inspiration to aid them in their creative task. The first disc of this two-CD set, begins with the spooky sound of an Australian didgeridoo, leading to a virtuoso pipa piece by the Chinese musician, Wu Man. In ‘Canada’, Ashley MacIsaac’s Cape Breton violin piece is part melodic folk tune and part energetic Celtic jig. Foda Musa Suso’s African kora can be heard in ‘Gambia’ and ‘Brazil’ features Glass’ trademark vocalise. ‘India’ has the wonderful Sitar-playing of Gaurav Mazumdar and ‘Greece’ the folkish voice of Eleftheria Arvcanitaki. This is a fascinating work by one of the founders of American Minimalism, whose output includes theatre, film, ballet and orchestral scores, as well as symphonies based on the music of David Bowie and Brian Eno.

MASASHI HARADA CONDANCTION ENSEMBLE           EMANEM 4108

According to the sleevenotes for this CD, ‘The human body and the musical instrument contain musical memory from the collective continuum of the tradition or milieu in which they were born and conditioned. This memory takes many forms, some internal and some external (such as notational and oral literature). Musical instruments and objects have accumulated external memory in their physical bodies, and it remains present in their current shapes and usages’. Condanction, emphasising music of body rather than music of memory, is essentially a collective feedback mechanism in which movements stimulate the musician’s physical impulse and the sound, and the sound then initiates a new movement. The intention is to ‘let the materiality of the sound weave by itself and flow in its own direction’. Focusing on music of body in this way leads to a synthesis of the subject/object relationship in music, erasing the barriers between musician and audience or creator and perceiver. The results of this adventurous exploration can be heard here on nine tracks that include the resonant Enterprising Mass of Cilia, Physio-Mechanical Pulse, a powerful Element of Resistance, and Distance Propitiate.

NEVER STOPS TO WAIT - SUNWRAE             MOVE  MCD 286

Rae Howell, otherwise known as Sunwrae, is an Australian freelance musician, composer and performer. A multi-instrumentalist on piano, vibraphone, trumpet, mellophone, glockenspiel and vocals, she also performs with various instrumental ensembles. Her inventive and accessible work fuses classical and minimalist techniques with improvised elements to create eclectic textures and rhythmical intricacy. Never Stops to Wait, her outstanding debut album, features five of her compositions, performed by some of Australia’s best musicians who are part of the evolving Sunwrae Ensemble. Tracks include a mellifluous extended centrepiece called Decipher the Crooked Ways. Other elegant works here include The Sweeper, Far Away Castle, Never Stops to Wait and While I’m Waiting. The performers are Rae Howell (piano and vibraphone), Natalia Mann (harp), Karen Heath (clarinet and bass clarinet), Joel Bloom (lap-steel guitar), Néda Rahmani (percussion), Alies Sluiter (violin), Tamil Rogeon (violin), Louise Woodward (viola), Caerwen Martin (cello) and Luke Richardson (double bass). Rae Howell’s deceptively simple music is reflective, soothing and driven by the pulse of life.

ANTHONY GILBERT - ON BEHOLDING A RAINBOW           NMC D105

Anthony Gilbert was born in London in 1934 and worked as a translator and interpreter before coming to composition late, studying with Mátyás Seiber, Anthony Milner and Alexander Goehr. He became known in the 1960s through a series of vibrant virtuoso works for small ensembles and has since written a wide range of music, including operas, string quartets and adventurous pieces for chamber orchestra. An uncompromising and individual composer, sometimes influenced by Indian music, he was, until his recent retirement, Head of Composition and Contemporary Music at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Gilbert’s major work of the 1990s was a highly-acclaimed violin concerto called On Beholding a Rainbow, originally commissioned by the BBC. This new disc features a first-class recording of this entrancing concerto performed by the young violinist Anthony Marwood with the RNCM Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Garry Walker. The CD also includes two rewarding new works, Unrise and ...Into the gyre of a madder dance, as well as a live recording of this unjustly neglected composer’s haunting song-cycle, Certain Lights Reflecting. The latter is played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Davis, with mezzo-soprano Susan Bickley as soloist.

ENCORES - STOCKHOLM SAXOPHONE QUARTET   PHONO SUECIA PSSACD 146

The innovative Stockholm Saxophone Quartet (Sven Westerberg, Jorgen Pettersson, Leif Karlborg and Per Hedlund) have been playing and performing together for almost twenty years. They specialise in chamber music for saxophone and have championed the work of composers from their home country Sweden as well as from abroad. The Quartet have had more than 400 works written for them, some of which involve advanced electro-acoustic music, and maintain close collaborations with many Swedish and foreign composers. The works here are by Daniel Nelson (Full Throttle), Dror Feiler (Ki), Jonas Bohlin (Deep Beeps), Karin Rhenqvist, Ingvar Karkoff (Tzivaeri), Johan Jeverud, Erik Forare, Arne Mellnas, Erland von Koch, Sten Melin, Sergej Dmitricv (Intrada), S Pat Simmerud (Soli), Jan W. Morthenson (Hymn/Chorale and Mats Larsson Gothe. This recording is issued in an SACD format that does full justice to the Quartet’s eloquent and stylish performances.

ARIA 3 - METAMORPHOSIS         KOCH RECORDS KOC-CD-5765

This new release from Paul Schwartz fuses contemporary instrumentation and operatic melodies in a hypnotic style that is emotional and powerful. The music was conceived to sound as live and real as possible, featuring a large string orchestra and the soaring soprano voice of Rebecca Luker, and the way these are combined with relentless rhythms produces a unique and thrilling experience. Three of the pieces are based on works by Handel: Onbra Mai Fu, Lascia, and Furioso, and one on Monteverdi: Ascension. Ombra, Lascia and Ascension in particular have a floating, other-worldly character unlike anything Paul Schwartz has done before. KOCH Records has also reissued the previous best-selling Aria titles: Aria and Aria 2 - New Horizon. The music on these discs will not please the purist, veering as it sometimes does into Andrew Lloyd-Webber territory, but it may bring a new audience to classical music. And even the most curmudgeonly critic will find the joyous vitality of Furioso (especially in its instrumental mix) hard to resist.

CECIL TAYLOR - ALGONQUIN         BRIDGE 9146

The remarkable pianist/composer Cecil Taylor was born in Long Island City in 1933. His early musical influences included Fats Waller, Bud Powell and Duke Ellington. In his many concert performances throughout the world, and on records, he frequently inspires his listeners into an ecstatic and involved response. Cecil Taylor’s music combines physical stamina with astonishing technical virtuosity. In 1999 he was commissioned by the American Library of Congress to write a piece for violin and piano, and his recording of this joyful work is captured here in the 18th volume of the Bridge series of Great Performances from the Library of Congress. He is joined by violinist Mat Maneri to perform an exhilarating version of a score that bridges the gap between jazz and classical music - between improvisation and notated music.

A LIFE IN THE DAY OF A MICROORGANISM   CORPORATE BLOB RECORDS CBR 002

 Monty python meets Frank Zappa in The primeTime sublime Community Orchestra (ptsCO), who perform music impossible to categorize. Skilled professional musicians, enthusiastic amateurs and a bank of computers combine to bring an entirely new sensibility to the often pretentious and self-absorbed world of modern music, pushing the limits of music style to the point of no return. The title piece on this latest album is a narrated pseudo-science education film (without picture) with music soundtrack and a supporting cast of digital actors. It consists of a Prelude about microorganisms (or humans?) for extraterrestrial adolescents (or humans?), followed by Morning (A breakfast scene tapestry of American TV commercial jingles from the 1950s and 60s warped beyond recognition, and Afternoon and Afterlife (continuing the absurd family saga). Instrumentation includes electric guitar, sitar, harp, percussion, strings, narrator and computer. The other works on this intriguing CD include Fashion Flag for a Part-Time Patriot (with references to 1960s Easy Listening, Chinese music, John Philip Sousa, 1950s TV Sitcom, Aaron Copland, Frank Zappa, Bugs Bunny and Igor Stravinsky) and Bimbo Mambo (Ricky Ricardo on acid, with occasional appearances by a group of evil robots).

PHILLIP SCHROEDER - SONGS OF MY AFFINITIES       CAPSTONE CPS-8726

This album features four adventurous works composed by Phillip Schroeder. Eight Songs on Poems by Ogden Nash makes entertaining use of short witty texts that observe a feature of an animal, insect, or water creature, with each set in a clear, declamatory style. Spirits of the Dead presents a set of five poems by Edgar Allan Foe in one continuous movement, evoking the allusions presented in the texts - loneliness, secrecy, silence, solitude, visions, shadows and stillness.  Songs of My Affinities is a set of six songs addressing three perennial Whitman themes: the highest virtues of humanity, our interdependence with nature, and the spiritual and mystical ground of all experience. The Infinite in Repose is a recitative for baritone and synthesizer. The musical setting follows the tradition of a vocal style designed to emphasize the natural declamations of speech through lyric melodies. Phillip Schroeder’s music is, as ever, audacious and thought-provoking, and the performers are Robert Best (baritone), Steven Becraft (clarinet), Stephen Feldman (violoncello), Rick Dimond (percussion), Jeri-Mae G. Astolfi (piano) and Phillip Schroeder (synthesizer).

PEACHY KEEN-O - BETH ANDERSON               POGUS 21030-2

Beth Anderson is an American composer of acclaimed avant-garde works that have been performed internationally, as well as a critic, pianist and vocalist. Her speciality is music that uses words and phonemes to make a unique kind of vocal-percussive composition. This adventurous CD inludes nine works that feature among other things an auctioneer, a Kentucky farm with birds and clover, a jazz dancer, a quivering, vibrating, sexually tinged piece full of women saying supplication, a saint dying in flames, a drum piece about frustration, mother/daughter miscommunication, a pipe organ, and punk rap with overtones of yoga. Many of these compositions from 1973-1979 use words or parts of words to make either all or part of the music. Sometimes the music is derived from the words. Some of it is part of the genre known as text-sound. The title work, Peachy Keen-O, is an electro-acoustic piece of ‘haunted house music’ for female voices, organ, electric guitar, vibraphone, large membranophones and metalophones, improvisatory dancers, peach light and pre-recorded tape. This is an intriguing and often inspired album of truly avant-garde sounds.

CLASSICAL SPIRIT       HIGHER OCTAVE MUSIC  HOMCD 13138

Enigmatic and adventurous German producer, ‘The Brave’, has created a stylish album based on well-known classical pieces by composers such as Beethoven, Bach, Albinoni and Barber (the famous Adagio), together with ancient choral chants sung by nuns, Russian choirs, and modern musical elements. The results are mystical, contemporary, and eternal. Rather than simply adding the same old club beats and rhythms to classical music this recording cuts an innovative path through previously untrodden ambient musical territories to produce something fresh, exciting and sophisticated.

ARIAPHONICS - DMITRI SILNITSKY         IGRAM MUSIC

On this ground-breaking album modern electronic sounds are combined with the lyricism of the Italian aria. Dmitri Silnitsky, the project’s producer, composer and arranger says that he ‘wanted to extend the idea of crossover and reach a wider audience by combining arias and great operatic singing with the sounds and moods of the concept albums of the 1970s’. He discovered that his ideas worked better by using the actual sounds of vintage, 1970s synthesizers and melletrons. A fine classic soprano (Gloria D’Amos) floats among electronic sounds to create a unique concept that may be another Russian breakthrough act to rival the worldwide success of the popular Tatu duo.

THE MUSIC OF ELLIOTT CARTER, VOL. 5                   BRIDGE 9128

The nine challenging compositions on this fifth volume of Bridge's invaluable series features Elliott Carter works from 1994 to 2002, including premiere recordings of Steep Steps; a fine Oboe Quartet played by Speculum Musicae; Figment No. 2 "Remembering Mr. Ives", (with Fred Sherry, cello); Au Quai (Maureen Gallagher, viola, Peter Kolkay, bassoon); and Hiyoku (Charles Neidich and Ayako Oshima, clarinets). Also included are Two Diversions (Charles Rosen, piano); the song cycle Of Challenge and of Love (Tony Arnold, soprano, Jacob Greenberg, piano); Figment No. 1 (Fred Sherry, cello); and Retrouvailles (Charles Rosen, piano). This outstanding album is a must for those interested in keeping up with the undimmed imagination and constant creative impulse of this American master, now well into his tenth decade.

CLARINET SONGS - DANIEL GOODE         XI RECORDS XI 113

Daniel Goode's adventurous ‘Clarinet Songs’ is a remarkable 75-minute suite for solo clarinet which Goode began writing for himself in 1979, and reached its current form in 1991. The work uses all of the composer/performer's virtuosic techniques distilled into sixteen ‘Songs without Words’, made up of a series of individual pieces. Each creates a sound world of its own, based on unique material, perhaps a specific technical, poetic, or sonic idea, or some synthesis of these. Most use circular breathing for continuity and use alternate fingerings which produce non-tempered intervals with unusual, striking timbres. ‘Clarinet Songs are marked by deep emotion and a meditative virtuosity’ - Grove's Dictionary of American Music. ‘Daniel Goode is one of those rare spirits who never abandoned the purity of '60s conceptualism, and whose work has been too neglected since the country lurched in a more superficial direction - The Village Voice.

SAVAGE SONGS - JORGE ANTUNES             POGUS 21027-2

This new release features remarkable works written from 1961 to 1970 by the composer Jorge Antunes. They include his Pequena Peça para Mi bequadro e Harmônicos, Valsa Sideral, Música para Varreduras de Freqüências, Fluxo Luminoso para Sons Brancos I, Contrapunctus contra Contrapunctus, Três Estudos Cromofônicos, Canto Selvagem, Movimento Browniano, Canto do Pedreiro, Cinta Cita, Auto-Retrato sobre Paisaje Porteño and Historia de um Pueblo por Nacer or Carta Abierta a Vassili Vasilikos y a todos los Pesimistas. This is adventurous, uncompromising electro-Acoustic music that may not be for everyone but should prove highly rewarding to those prepared to listen with open ears and mind.