Hot Links: Ferragosto Edition
New releases and old(er) writing.
New Music
Here’s a quick look at a handful of good albums coming out today:
Polytempo Music
Brian Baumbusch
I wrote the liner notes for this album, which is not the reason I’m recommending it—no royalties change hands!—but because this is a genuinely impressive project. Baumbusch is the composer and the music uses minimalist and gamelan structures and aesthetics. The key to what makes this special is in the title, this is music where each instrumental line and grouping within the larger ensemble plays at its own tempo. They’re not wildly disparate, instead coming in and out of coordination like difference tones, with propulsive tension moving toward satisfying resolutions and back out again. Baumbusch did serious heavy lifting on notating these charts so this would all work making a multitracked recording, and it’s really something.
The album is only half of it, the full realization is through a VR headset which is a mind-boggling experience and the best uses of this technology I’ve experienced. Each part and instrument are represented by different shapes and colors, and spiral out in patterns very much like an overview of the the Milky Way. With the headset on, you can isolate and approach different lines (this depends on how much physical space you have around you), combining both vertiginous listening and seeing. This is a real compositional, technological, and most of all aesthetic accomplishment.
Carlos Simon: Four Orchestral Works
Gianandrea Noseda, National Symphony Orchestra
In February, VAN published an article of mine about Black modernism in American classical music, the point being that the great American sound of the middle 20th century has become generally neglected except for outstanding contemporary Black composers like Adolphus Hailstork, Valerie Coleman, and Carlos Simon. Simon is in DC with the National Symphony Orchestra, and today they released this CD.
Block and Tales have been out as digital releases, this album brings them together with the vocal piece Songs of Separation , with soprano J’Nai Bridges, and Wake Up! Concerto for Orchestra—so a very nice collection that complements his overture piece, Fate Now Conquers, which is rapidly becoming an orchestra staple. I love his robust writing, that extroversion, driving rhythms, and that wide open, colorful, complex sense of harmony that’s the American sound, one that captures city and country. While the Block performance is a little shaky, the rest is fine, the symphony punchy, the songs luminous, while the substantial concerto is both colorful and jaunty.
Fluid Dynamics
Out today on Orchid Classics (available at importcds.com) is this superb, invigorating album of new music from violinist Friday. There is a non-musical concept here, with the commissions from Gabriella Smith, Paul Wiancko, Cristina Spinei, Timo Andres, Leilehua Lanzilotti, and Christopher Cerrone based around a collaboration between Friday and oceanographer Georgy Manucharyan and his experiments in fluid dynamics—the commonality is waves.
There is a lengthy explanation behind it that is interesting, but the fundamental point is the music is excellent, the composers writing in a way that’s interrelated, and does not require any background text to enjoy, the language speaks clearly and is completely musical. And Friday’s playing is full of energy and skill, as you can hear from the excerpt above. One of the best new music releases of 2024.
Bamako Chicago Sound System
Nicole Mitchell Bamako and Ballaké Sissoko
A gorgeous, uplifting album that just explodes with sunshine. Mitchell is one of my favorite musicians, beautiful sound and powerful convictions and rhythmic drive. This is not a 50-50 collaboration with musicians from Bamako, more that Mitchell and other Chicago players (an amazing bunch that includes Jeff Parker and JoVia Armstrong) dropping into the African context of kora player Sissoko. Though it’s odd it’s been sitting in the can since 2017, this release could not come at a better time. One of the best of the year so far.
Writing Elsewhere
My colleague Steve Smith, who has been a real supporter of this newsletter (thank you Steve!), encouraged me to send out this link to a guide I wrote for Bandcamp on Noah Creshevsky:
“Noah Creshevsky Pushed Human Music to the Edge of Possibility”—which he did, and he was also a great person. I mean (liner notes by yours truly) check this out:
And here’s an old interview I did with Noah.
A few more:
Good listening to all.