Revisiting the Experimental Music of 2019
When I started writing this year-end list in the beginning of December, I felt a bit like I was straying from my moral compass. I’ve long argued against the year-end list, even though I found the magic of Big Thief on NPR Music’s 2016 list (and that’s just one example). I decided to begin the lengthy process of amalgamation by writing down big questions instead … Continue reading Revisiting the Experimental Music of 2019
Album Review: Ashley Bathgate & Sleeping Giant, ASH
Bach’s solo cello suites can be heard in places ranging from the concert hall to TV commercials; the satisfying sound of strumming rolled chords during the Prelude of the first suite is a familiar memory. On ASH, celebrated cellist Ashley Bathgate mines her personal connection to these famed suites by commissioning her friends, the six-member composer collective Sleeping Giant, to create a set of new works … Continue reading Album Review: Ashley Bathgate & Sleeping Giant, ASH
On Sounding Daydreams
“Solo guitar figures flow and fray through echo and empty space, evoking loss, long roads, and low-lit landscapes.” That’s what the little blurb about Scenes from the South Island tells me as I scroll through its Bandcamp page. “It would be nice to take a road trip,” I think to myself as I hit play. “Through the American southwest. Zion’s kind of unreal.” The album … Continue reading On Sounding Daydreams
Album Review: Square Peg Round Hole, Branches
On Branches, Philadelphia-based ensemble Square Peg Round Hole creates genre-blending ambient music that melds outward expression with inner pensiveness. The third LP from the percussion-based trio — Evan Chapman, Sean M. Gill, and Carlos Pacheco-Perez — Branches continues in a similar vein to past releases like 2016’s Juniper, a deeply emotional collection of purely instrumental, ambient works. But this time around, they’ve incorporated occasional vocals … Continue reading Album Review: Square Peg Round Hole, Branches
Isabelle O’Connell’s Wide-Ranging Exploration of Contemporary Piano at the Irish Arts Center
Pianist Isabelle O’Connell performed 13 different pieces at the Irish Arts Center on November 7. Each encapsulated a vastly different soundscape, but stories of O’Connell’s life and travels between Dublin and New York City connected them. The first piece on the program was George Gershwin’s Prelude No. 1, chosen in honor of her last concert in Dublin before moving to New York for school, where … Continue reading Isabelle O’Connell’s Wide-Ranging Exploration of Contemporary Piano at the Irish Arts Center
Track Premiere: Yaz Lancaster, “Meditations on Auxin”
meditations on auxin, a new brooding work for electric guitar and voice, amalgamates the seemingly disparate musical categories of ancient Greek lyre songs, Bach’s solo partitas and sonatas, and punk rock. Composed by performer-composer and poet Yaz Lancaster and performed by composer, guitarist, and arranger Andrew Noseworthy, meditations on auxin uses form as a framework to give the performer freedom of interpretation. Released today on DIY-inspired, … Continue reading Track Premiere: Yaz Lancaster, “Meditations on Auxin”
Afterimage: Kinds of Kings, ~Nois, and Wide-Ranging Musical Styles at Roulette
Kinds of Kings, a six-member composer collective dedicated to producing inclusive work and advocating for underheard voices, celebrated the opening of their 2019-20 season at Roulette on October 24 with a concert titled Afterimage. Teaming up with ~Nois, a Chicago-based, new music focused saxophone quartet, the evening featured one work for saxophone ensemble by each composer in the collective, each exploring a different musical style. … Continue reading Afterimage: Kinds of Kings, ~Nois, and Wide-Ranging Musical Styles at Roulette
