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June 2004

Program #2302

Wednesday, June 30, 2004

It's that time again for the monthly program of new releases. John Schaefer picks through the bucketloads of CDs that have flooded his inbox to find new releases worthy of showcasing in tonight's program. Fact: a favorite game in the office is "Don't Tip the Waiter" making use of the stacks of CDs waiting for airplay on John's desk...


Program #2301

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Hear another of the “Theme and Variations” programs on this New Sounds, where the theme this time is “Hard Times Come Again No More.” It’s simple – take a single piece of music and explore what a number of musicians have done with it, through arrangements, deconstructions, and revisions of the original theme. Stephen Foster’s touching, optimistic melody is arranged and varied by Mark O'Connor/Yo Yo Ma/Edgar Meyer, Bill Frisell, Darol Anger, El McMeen, and much more.


Program #2300

Monday, June 28, 2004

From the Javanese, “gamel,” meaning “hammer,” or “to strike," gamelan is a group of instruments meant to be played together, including tuned metallophones, various gongs, flutes, drums and other percussion. This edition of New Sounds is packed full of gamelan music, from both the east and west. Hear music of the nearly thousand-year old tradition of Java (Indonesia), with ceremonial music from the Surakarta (a.k.a. Soko) court. Plus, Richard Marriott's score to “Legong,” a film and film score incorporating Balinese Gamelan music, and much more.


Program #2065

Sunday, June 27, 2004

On this edition of New Sounds, we take a further look at DJ Spooky's Optometry, a disc that has been proclaimed an instant classic by many critics. This sprawling sonic essay, which merges DJ culture seamlessly with jazz, ambient, and other styles, is called by its creator "jazz for the genre splice generation." Along with laptop and turntables, DJ Spooky is joined by pianist Matthew Shipp and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain, among other guest musicians. We also hear works by Richard Lainhart, Steve Roach & Jeff Fayman, and Amnon Wolman.


Program #2064

Saturday, June 26, 2004

On this episode of New Sounds, there’s choral music from around the globe, including Corsica, Armenia, Georgia, Greece, and beyond. What this choral music all has in common is a combination of melody (without harmony) and drone from a number of different choral traditions. We’ll make our way through Southeastern Europe and the Caucasus Mountains, with a plowing song from the Republic of Georgia. Then, from neighboring Armenia, hear 13th Century sacred choral music. There’s also choral music from the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. Plus hear Syrian Orthodox church music sung largely in Arabic by Sister Marie Keyrouz, the Lebanese nun based in Paris.


Program #2204

Friday, June 25, 2004

An Indian music sampler of folk-based and "light classical" fare is served up on this edition of New Sounds. Sitarist and vocalist Shujaat H. Khan, comes from one of the most reknowned North Indian (Hindustani) musical families - his father is sitar master Ustad Vilayat Khan. However, Shujaat’s baritone voice on “Hawa Hawa”, sings folk songs from his childhood, accompanied by sitar, tabla and other percussion. These pieces are shorter than the average raga, with a little more melody, and more rhythmic patterns, and have an overall “lighter” feel. Another Hindustani classical musician who subscribed to the idea that ragas had their origins in folk melodies is the late Pandit Kumar Gandharva. From a recent release of his previously unavailable nirguni bhajans, or non-deity specific devotional music, we’ll hear some of these intense vocal meditations, accompanied by tabla, tanpura and harmonium.


Program #2206

Thursday, June 24, 2004

Up on this New Sounds is the first of two programs featuring music performed by the Tin Hat Trio, together and apart, recorded live at Merkin Hall this past September 2003. Hear twisted chamber-punk snippet songs from Tin Hat violinist Carla Kihlstedt and her band, along with tangos from klez-land and other tunes by the trio's brilliant keyboardist, Rob Burger, and his extraordinary ensemble. Also look forward to performances by the full trio - joined by their guitarist Mark Orton - from this New Sounds Live concert.


Program #2203

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

There’s Isadora Duncan Award-winning music tonight on New Sounds - a work by San Francisco based composer, performer and bandleader Beth Custer, called “What the Body Knows”, from her "Maverick Strain" score. We’ll sample some of her other country music electronic tango-like songs and instrumentals from major dance productions on that release. Plus, there’s more new music by Kamikaze Ground Crew co-leader and all-around underground veteran Doug Wieselman. Music from his score for the Oscar-winning documentary Long Way Home and other new recordings of his soundtrack compositions have just been released, and we’ll listen to some selections from that CD as well.


Program #2299

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

For this edition of New Sounds, hear some pairings of words and music, with settings of poetry, songs of unrequited love, and melancholy. Hear from Robin Williamson, the Scottish founder of the Incredible String Band who sets poetry by Dylan Thomas to music, in "Poem On His Birthday," an epic piece based on one of Thomas's most astonishing late creations. Also, John Renbourn sings "The Snows," a somewhat cynical look at women, backed by his own guitar. Plus, listen to Donna McKevitt’s intimate settings of Derek Jarman’s words and images, in I Walk In This Garden. Rounding out the show is music by the group known as the Dowland Project, made up of ex-Hilliard Ensemble singer John Potter, jazz musicians John Surman and Barry Guy, along with Stephen Stubbs (chitarrone, baroque guitar),and Maya Homburger (baroque violin), re-interpreting songs by John Dowland.


Program #2298

Monday, June 21, 2004

This New Sounds program, “The Young People’s Guide to Astronomy,” features works that take astronomical phenomena and translate them into music. Hear Elodie Lauten’s Variations on the Orange Cycle, an experience of time, with the earth’s 24 hour rotation cycle as a point of departure. Venture further out with music by Neil Ardley, based on the idea of the “Harmony of the Spheres,” the celestial music that the ancient Greeks believed was given out by the planets as they float through space. Ardley realized this notion by converting the orbit times of our solar system’s nine planets into musical notes, whose upper and lower limits correspond to the range of human hearing, and composing music with these frequencies. Plus, hear Terry Riley’s “Sun Rings,” drawing on sounds directly from our solar system collected by NASA, like the crackling of solar winds, the whistling of deep-space lightning, and other cosmic phenomena.


Program #2062

Sunday, June 20, 2004

German composer and inventor Hans Reichel has been working with the daxophone instrument series for some years now. His invention, which looks something like a tripod, produces noise when the carved wood on top is bowed. Depending on the shape of the wood carving, the instrument can approximate various sounds, like growls, warbling singing voices, kazoos, and synthesizer noises. Hear the singing voice of wood, multitracked and with nifty percussion all over his latest release, YUXO: A New Daxophone Operetta, on this edition of New Sounds. Plus, Bill Trig plays a recent composition by Kevin Volans live in the studio and hear from fellow German composer Ferdinand Försch as well.


Program #2061

Saturday, June 19, 2004

Dominic Frasca and Marc Mellits are two of today's leading interpreters of minimalism in the classical guitar world - and for good reason. Composers Philip Glass and Steve Reich have endorsed these guitarists spellbinding transcriptions for the instrument. We hear selections from the recent CD Shattered Glass, including Glass's works "Mad Rush," "Two Pages" and Metamorphosis No. 1 for 10, 13 and 6. We also hear guitar works by Frasca and "Five Minetudes" by Marc Mellits.


Program #2202

Friday, June 18, 2004

Fresh and innovative, the artists emerging from Iceland these days are surely some of the most creative and breathtaking in music. On this edition of New Sounds, we’ll hear austere, mysterious and strangely beautiful works from the likes of Johan Johannson, the composer Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson, and the countertenor Sverrir Gudjunsson. Plus there’s music by the atmospheric and ethereal Sigur Ros and selections from perhaps the best known Icelandic export - Björk.


Program #2297

Thursday, June 17, 2004

On this edition of New Sounds, hear the Qawwali music of Farid Ayaz Qawwal. One of the leading performers of the centuries-old, suddenly hip style of Pakistani Sufi music and chant, Farid Ayaz and his Qawwali ensemble show how ecstatic poetry and music communicate across language and cultural divides. The group was formed by 82-year-old Grand Master Munshi Raziuddin, who has performed sacred music for over sixty years and passed on the art of qawwali to his eldest son Farid Ayaz and his younger sons. Farid Ayaz Qawwal & Brothers perform some of these devotional songs live in the WNYC studio.


Program #2205

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

New Sounds explores the connections between medieval and modern music with music from the British Isles and more. From the Anonymous 4 release, "Wolcum Yule: Celtic and British Songs and Carols", hear some traditional carols sung in various Celtic languages--Irish, Welsh, Cornish, and even old Scots, featuring virtuoso harp accompaniment by Andrew Lawrence-King. Plus there's a string quartet by Sir John Tavener, “The Last Sleep of the Virgin”, dedicated to the Chilingirian String Quartet and scored for almost inaudible string quartet and bells.


Program #2296

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

This New Sounds program is devoted to new music from California, with some brand-new Cold Blue recordings along with recent moody piano musings from Harold Budd. Listen to selections from Budd’s ambient and dreamy “The Room,” whose walls invite discovery. Also, there’s music from the composer and founder of the recently revived Cold Blue Music label, Jim Fox, and his piece for trombones, strings and piano, “The City The Wind Swept Away,” self-described as both “motionless and moving forward with a strange sense of inevitability.” Rounding out the show is more compelling music from Cold Blue by Daniel Lentz, with his far-reaching “Los Tigres De Marte,” for clarinet, string quartet and electronic keyboards.


Program #2201

Monday, June 14, 2004

On this edition of New Sounds, hear 21st century arrangements of 20th century songs by Kurt Weill, Woody Guthrie, Serge Gainsbourg, and others. Performances by the Eastside Sinfonietta, Hans Wenzel, Jane Birkin, Nora York, the Kamikaze Ground Crew, and more.


Program #2058

Sunday, June 13, 2004

Electronic music has come in many shapes and sizes today, from techno beats to complex sonic manipulations of the IRCAM school. On this installment of New Sounds we hear Alvin Curran's evocative and curiously lyrical "Song and Views of the Magnetic Garden" (1973), a work that combines chanting, singing, the bells of Rome, the lapping of the ocean, and many other sounds. Jonathan Harvey's tape piece "Mortuos Plango Vivos Voco" resulted from an invitation from Boulez to work at IRCAM in the early 1980s. And Luc Ferrari's 1977 Place des abbesses is an evocative electro acoustic work realized at his home studio in Paris.


Program #2060

Saturday, June 12, 2004

The multifaceted vocalist Sarah Pillow is equally at home in jazz settings like the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland; at avant-garde hotspots like the Kitchen and the Knitting Factory; and with the New York Philharmonic in its celebration of Stephen Sondheim’s 70th birthday. Her latest recording, "Nuove Musiche," is a rock-jazz-alternative album based on 17th-century melodies and texts, and features guitarist John Goodsall and bassist Percy Jones, founders of the progressive jazz-rock band Brand X. We hear excerpts from her recent visit to the WNYC studios.


Program #2295

Friday, June 11, 2004

Hi Tech, Lo Tech, (New Tech,) No Tech. It’s a New Sounds for the Dr. Suess set, or at least for those who like to experiment with sound-producing technological toys. There’s music from Chris Butler’s latest, called “Museum of Me,” where he recorded onto wax cylinders, wire recorders, and antique tape machines. Then listen to a bit from Michael Gordon’s latest, “Light Is Calling.” Its avant-classical sound is somewhat drum-and-bass like, with twisted loops that might not be out of place at a dance club. Also, hear music by Daniel Figgis from his recording, “Skipper,” coupled with ambient re-compositions of Figgis’ loopy samples and instrumental electronic washes. These works are from a new compilation, “When It’s Ajar,” by Ireland’s finest soundmakers, who run the gamut from electroacoustic music, glitch and micro-sound, to hip-hop, ambient and dance music.


Program #2200

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Algeria-born and San Francisco-based DJ Cheb I Sabbah’s musical reinventions have included Sufi devotionals, ragas, and even Indian film music layered into trancey warped swirls of drones fused with innovative percussion patterns. On his CD, Shri Durga, he’s taken “world” music for a spin on the club dance floor yet again, with enticing results. Hear selections from DJ Cheb I Sabbah, along with works by Sheila Chandra, Bossacucanova, and the young rappers from Bamako, Les Escrocs, on a New Sounds program of worldbeat music.


Program #2199

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

There's music by the Klezmatics on this installment of New Sounds. These “possessed Jews with horns” have been making their crazy, spiritual, reflective, and danceable Yiddish party music since the late 1980’s. Tonight, hear tunes from their most recent record, “Rise Up!”, a somewhat moody opus with lots of traditional sources, which at times, feels like eavesdropping on religious services. Selections by Les Yeux Noirs and Tarafs de Haidouks round out this program of music with Eastern European roots.


Program #2294

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

The visionary collaboration between Polish film director Krzysztof Kieslowski and composer Zbigniew Preisner was cut short in 1995 when the director had a heart attack and died. Hear the composer’s deeply religious musical memorial written as a final goodbye for his director friend on this edition of New Sounds. This heavy choral work is in both Latin and Polish, accompanied by a string quintet, organ and percussion. Also on tap is Steve Reich's Proverb, a choral work which pays homage to the 12th-century composer Perotin and makes liberal use of the medieval hocket technique. Plus, Meredith Monk’s mammoth "Atlas," a travelogue opera in three parts, with its dreamlike vocalise and rich vocal textures.


Program #2293

Monday, June 07, 2004

Forget about the space-time continuum on this edition of New Sounds. Hear “Birds in Warped Time II” by Somei Satoh, featuring violinist Anne Akiko Meyers rendering the somewhat Japanese-sounding melody, still and spare over the repetitive piano. Also, listen to some of Morton Feldman's late masterpiece "Triadic Memories," slow-moving and mostly quiet piano music, raising awareness of the silence around it as much as it engages with sound. Pianist Louis Goldstein, on performing Triadic Memories, relates that “my own sense of time is stretched and tugged in ways I never before experienced.” Plus American composer Peter Garland’s work, "Walk In Beauty," written for pianist Aki Takahashi. The piece is based on the peyote chants of the American southwest and seems to have captured the sense of suspended time as well.


Program #2059

Sunday, June 06, 2004

New Sounds presents ensemble works from across the musical spectrum. The Josh Roseman Unit performs "Love In Outer Space" and a spacey off-kilter cover of Kurt Cobain's "Smells like Teen Spirit." British art-rock ensemble Icebreaker offers up D. Le Gassick's "Mad Legs In a Sack" and Steve Martland's "Shoulder To Shoulder. Plus, we hear works performed by the Jeff Gauthier Goatette, the Nels Cline Singers, and Ken Thomson.


Program #2057

Saturday, June 05, 2004

With any conventional piano, a hammer drops on string, and sound is produced. Well, perhaps not always, for on this edition of New Sounds, there are some unusual approaches to noisemaking at the piano, including ebow, electronic processing, and overdubs, although not all at once. Hear the eerie and theremin-like, yet somehow evil-sounding ebow (a little magnet which produces a sustain) on piano strings with Maggi Payne’s work “Holding Patterns,” performed live in the WNYC studio by pianist Sarah Cahill. Also listen to Charles K. Noyes’ processed piano music; and the “string” piano, or the insides of the piano, as Margaret Leng-Tan plays John Cage’s “In the Name of the Holocaust.”


Program #2198

Friday, June 04, 2004

There’s African music from Russia, Italy, England, and, of course, Africa on this edition of New Sounds. Italian reedman Gianluigi Trovesi’s latest project, an octet, has just released a record called ”Fugace.” From it, we’ll hear “African Tryptych,” which merges the spirit of New Orleans with Italian popular song, European classical music, and space jazz. Plus, new interpretations of Senegalese traditional music by singer and musician Mola Sylla and Russian double bass player Vladimir Volkov from the record “Seetu” (Mirror). We’ll also hear from Mali-born vocalist and drummer Abdoulaye Diabate, who sends his soaring voice over traditional W. African instruments and electric bass.


Program #2292

Thursday, June 03, 2004

The English folk song Scarborough Fair dates back to late medieval times, when the seaside resort of Scarborough was an important venue for tradesmen from all over England. Scarborough Fair was actually a huge forty-five day trading event, starting around August fifteenth, which was exceptionally long for a fair in those days. Now that there's a sense of place and time, on this episode of New Sounds, you'll hear many new versions of old folk songs like Scarborough Fair, including the ambient arrangement of that tune by the British musician/composer/producer Tom Green, a.k.a. Another Fine Day. Also, bassist-leader Marc Johnson, along with drummer Peter Erskine and celebrated guitarists Bill Frisell and John Scofield take on the folk ballad "Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair," a tune probably from the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Plus Nora York’s riveting interpretation of one of the most famous of Irish folk songs “She Moved Through The Fair,” and more.


Program #2291

Wednesday, June 02, 2004

There’s music inspired by the courts and gardens of imperial Japan on this edition of New Sounds. Multi-talented violinist Eyvind Kang’s latest is a record called Virginal Co-ordinates, where he oversees a 22 piece orchestra making siren-like wails, not unlike the sustained static feeling of gagaku. Hear selections from Kang's CD along with selections from Herbie Mann’s import-only release from 1976, called “Gagaku and Beyond.” This effort, pairing a traditional Japanese ensemble (samisen, koto, riu teki, kakko, shoko, shakuhachi, and big taiko drums, occasionally with chanting Zen monks) together with Mann’s band, was a great success long before the “world fusion” term had ever been coined. Melodic and contemplative, the two ensembles engage each other and have hauntingly similar intentions: to articulate inner spaces, and dwell on the stately stasis inherent in Japanese court music. Also, there’s more beautifully scarce movement, and emptiness intensified, as heard in John Cage’s work Ryoanji, after the Japanese rock garden of the same name.


Program #2290

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush singled out Iran, Iraq, and North Korea and their allies as part of an "axis of evil." In response to this branding, the Norwegian Eric Hillestade traveled to Iraq, Palestine, Iran and North Korea to record lullabies mothers sang to their children. The result is a new compilation called “Lullabies from the Axis of Evil.” The album contains lullabies from Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Palestine, Syria, Afghanistan and Cuba, sung by women from these countries, along with a western version sung by singers like Nina Hagen (Germany), Eddi Reader (Scotland), and Lila Downs (USA/Mexico). Hear some of these lullaby collaborations from the project on this edition of New Sounds. Also, lullabies from Rinde Eckert, Tom Waits, the World Sax Quartet, the Dylan Group, and more.