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October 2007

October 2007 New Releases

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

It's the most wonderful time of the month - new releases! On this New Sounds program, listen to the pick of the piles. There'll probably be new music by Gyan Riley, Kalman Balogh and Philip Glass & Robert Wilson. Plus, a new recording of Steve Reich's Music fo 18 Musicians. And more.


Piano and Voice

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

This New Sounds highlights evocative but enigmatic songs for that apparently simplest of combinations – piano and voice. From the most recent record by Susanne Abbuehl, hear “In the Dark Pine-Wood” with poetry by James Joyce, and something new from songwriter Lee Feldman. Also, there’s a beautiful tune - “Strange Lures” by the reclusive Ed Pastorini. Hear more music for piano and voice by Robin Holcomb with a breathtaking track, “Deliver Me.” Plus, Peter Gabriel’s “Here Comes The Flood.”


Ambient Classical

Monday, October 29, 2007

For this New Sounds, listen to ambient classical California composers like Phillip Schroeder, Harold Budd, Daniel Lentz, and more. Composer/music professor Phillip Schroeder uses multiple pianos and digital delays to generate dense masses of shimmering trills and cascades that create a complex calm and openness. Harold Budd’s music, a sparse and tonal wash of keyboard treatments, was inspired at an early age by the humming tone caused by wind blown across telephone wires in the Mojave Desert town of Victorville, California. Also, there’s lush, pitch-drifting electronic soundscapes from California-based composer Daniel Lentz as well.


Baltic Musical States

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Hear music from Eastern Europe and The Baltics on this edition of New Sounds. Listen to the spiritual message by Arvo Pärt, “Da pacem Domine,” commissioned for a peace concert in 2004 and performed by the Hilliard Ensemble. Plus, there's work from Pärt’s Estonian counterpart, Veljo Tormis. Nearly twenty years in the making, Tormis’ song cycle, “Forgotten Peoples,” aims to “awaken understanding, and help retain the ancient Balto-Finnic heritage,” according to the composer. There’s also dense and intense music from Alfred Schnittke, arranged by the Kronos Quartet from Schnittke's "Concerto for Mixed Choir," along with music from a chamber group extraordinary young players from the Baltic States led by violinist Gidon Kremer - Kremerata Baltica, and much more.


"Art House" Film Scores

Saturday, October 27, 2007

On this edition of New Sounds, listen to exquisite scores written not for blockbuster feature films but for smaller, "art-house" movies. Eleni Karaindrou’s film scores fall somewhere between those fine lines of jazz, minimalism and classical. Sample some of her music from the 1986 film directed by Theo Angelopoulos, "The Beekeeper," which features the soulful playing of saxophonist Jan Garbarek. Listen to music from the soundtrack to one of Iceland's most successful films, Angels of the Universe, featuring incidental music by Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson, with two songs by Icelandic neo-post/prog-rockers, Sigur Rós. Hear everything from glitchy, distressed electronics and treated tribal drums and somehow violent oceanic washes of glissandos. Drawing from French New Wave cinema, jazz and Arabic musical traditions, the Tunisian oud master Anouar Brahem along with accordion and piano, evokes Satie and Chopin on the meditative Le Pas du chat noir ("the black cat's footsteps.") Plus, French film maker Maurice Pialat used Henryk Gorecki's "Symphony No. 3: Chants plaintifs" to accompany a movie called "Police."


West African Snap

Friday, October 26, 2007

Hear some buoyant music from Mali, Bourkina Faso, Senegal, and more on this New Sounds program. We'll hear the latest release from Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra, one of Bamako's most popular bands. Their name refers to a balance between tradition and progress, and their contagiously danceable tunes range from age-old Mandé standards to Cuban-Senegalese salsa. Then there's the driving and energetic "West African Snap," by the World Saxophone Quartet, a most unusual jazz combo, who have been playing together for nearly 30 years, and whose repertoire has ranged from blues to funk, to an album of Jimi Hendrix covers in addition to their latest release, "Political Blues." [Worth mentioning, even though we won't hear any of it on this New Sounds, "Political Blues" is an eloquent musical statement which seethes in anger at the Bush administration's handling of New Orleans relief, homeland security, and racial issues (Justin Time Records.)] There's also music from Bourkina Faso by singer and djembe (a drum carved from a tree trunk) master Amadou Kienou Plus, selections from the final recording by Ali Farka Touré called "Savane."


New Irish Folk

Thursday, October 25, 2007

This New Sounds is devoted to new music from the Irish folk tradition, including music by the late Mícheál O Domhnaill. O Domhnaill was a guitarist who, according to some, created the blueprint for subtle and driving guitar accompaniment in Irish music. The guitarist and composer helped found one of the pivotal bands in the Irish folk revival, The Bothy Band, and went on to form the US-based outfits Nightnoise, Relativity, Puck Fair, and to play in various other settings that often moved well beyond the Gaelic tradition.


New Music from South Asia

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

For this New Sounds, experience gamelan pop from Indonesia, by Uun Budiman and the Jugala Gamelan Orchestra. Budinam Uun, got her start singing for puppet theatres, but was recruited to sing in the Jugala Orchestra led by Gugum Gumbira. It’s definitely a new and unusual unique sound, sort of a combo plate of traditional gamelan-type music with a bit of pop song form to it. Plus, there’s Indian classical music by the sitar master Shujaat Husain Khan from the most recent release "Gayaki Ang," where he "avoids the lure of showy, pointlessly virtuosistic playing" and opts instead for a more languid, fluid feeling. And lots more.


New Americans: Africa

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Listen to music by foreign-born artists from Africa, including Mandingo griot Foday Musa Suso (Gambia), Moroccan trance musician Hassan Hakmoun, master drummer Obo Addy (Ghana) with the Kronos Quartet, kora player Mamadou Diabate (Mali), and others.


Poetry and Music

Monday, October 22, 2007

Poetry and music trip merrily together off into the sunset on this New Sounds. Dan Kaufman and the band he founded, Barbez, are a theremin-marimba-vibes-guitar-bass-drum combo who work the rock, Eastern European folk, downtown experimental, and punk-cabaret angles. We'll hear from Kaufman's homage to 20th Century poet and Holocaust survivor Paul Celan, from his latest, "Force of Light" on this program. Also, listen to John Hollenbeck's "Joys and Desires" (with poetry by William Blake), along with Material's "Seven Souls" (with poetry by William S. Burroughs), and more.


Cello Multiples

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Listen to some music for multiple cellos, acoustic and electric, looped and layered on this New Sounds program. From cellist Maya Beiser’s release called “Kinship,” hear Evan Ziporyn’s “Kebyar Maya,” written specifically for her. It's a transcription of an orchestral gamelan work for solo cello, where Beiser whacks the cello's body, plunks and detunes the strings, and strikes the instrument with an assortment of objects. Also on tap is wicked, majestic, and somehow poppy stuff from the group Rasputina, currently three cellists strong, who can rock out, induce giggles and shivers, all the while making beautiful eccentric Gothic chamber rock. Then, dive into music by loop cellist and Rasputina member Zoe Keating. Her solo project features as many as 16 cellos expertly layered into both hooky melodies and full–bodied textures. Plus, there’s music from the cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic, and more.


(Near) East Meets West

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Take a new look at medieval music as the British a capella group The King's Singers and Middle Eastern early music specialists, Sarband team up to perform sacred music by 17th century composer Ali Ufki. A bit of background - Ali Ufki was a protestant born in Poland, but converted to Islam after his capture by the Ottoman Turks at the age of 13. He was a musician and translator in the imperial court of the Sultan Mehmed IV in Constantinople, (documents from the period indicate that he spoke 16 languages) where he also translated the bible into Turkish. On this New Sounds program, listen to the Ali Ufki’s Turkish settings of the Psalms of David. Also, hear the trouvére song “Chanterai pour mon coraige,” the lament of a woman whose husband has gone off to fight in the Crusades. Plus music by Ensemble PAN, and more.


Sampling Don Cherry

Friday, October 19, 2007

The great trumpeter, world music icon, jazz explorer, improviser, and part Choctaw Indian - Don Cherry - is no longer on the planet, but his work lives on in recordings. On this edition of New Sounds, we'll sample some of the music of Don Cherry, which reaches across a weird and wonderful range of musical idioms and forms. Listen to Cherry's work as Codona - a group with Collin Walcott and the Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos - whose musical flavourings draw from Africa, India, South America and the Middle East. There's also some of the "American Indian jazz" that Cherry played with tenor sax player Jim Pepper. Plus, hear from collaborations with Latif Khan, Adam Rudolph, Hassan Hakmoun, Lou Reed and Talking Heads, among others.


Classics Revisited

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Listen to New Sounds-style reworkings of classical pieces on this program. There's music by Clogs and Ralph Towner, along with The John Dowland Project. Plus, we'll liberally sample the latest from Taraf de Haidouks, a CD of arrangements called Maskarada. On this, their latest release, there's Bartók, Khachaturian, Albeniz & a piece featuring distinguished singer/cymbalom player Virginica Dumitru, the first-ever female Taraf guest instrumentalist.


New Americans: China

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

We focus on foreign-born artists from China, with music by pipa virtuoso Min Xiao Fen, along with works by David Mingyue Liang, Tan Dun, Zhou Long, and Bun Ching Lam.


Slightly Eccentric Journey

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Michael Brook, the longtime electric guitarist, producer, instrument builder, inspired collaborator and composer joins us for this New Sounds program. He is responsible for the music behind the global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," and contributed compositions to Gregory Colbert’s traveling exhibition, “Ashes and Snow,” and has scored the film Who Killed the Electric Car, which premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Inventor of the "infinite guitar," the Canadian ambient composer has done extensive work with Brian Eno, worked on many musical creations involving 4AD artists, contributed to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s “Mustt Mustt” and collaborated with him for “Night Song.” Brook’s latest solo release is called "RockPaperScissors," and he’ll present selections from this “slightly eccentric” travelogue, (along with tunes from a storied 25-year career of making music with folks like Daniel Lanois, Brian Ferry, The Pogues, and the Armenian duduk flute master Djivan Gasparayan.)


Keyboard Music

Monday, October 15, 2007

Listen to an hour of keyboard music for this New Sounds Program. There are liberal helpings of the new 3 CD set by Marco Benevento, an accordion and piano tune from Guy Klucevsek & Alan Bern, tango music, and more. Plus, hear music by Seth Kaufman and Michael Nyman.


Assassin Reverie

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Like the Energizer Bunny, some of the groundbreaking composers of the 1960s are still breaking ground today. On this edition of New Sounds, hear the latest from Terry Riley, the composer and keyboardist who brought Minimalism to the musical public in 1964, inspired The Who and many other European rockers in the 70s, and has become a sought-after classical composer. His latest, "Assassin Reverie," for saxophone quartet and tape, is a single movement in three sections with different sound material and stage direction for each section. One of the more disturbing pieces written by Riley, “Assassin Reverie” uses an aggressive sampling of gunshots and helicopter sounds in the middle section. Plus, listen to “Maarifa Street” by Jon Hassell and Steve Reich’s latest “Cello Counterpoint.”


Breaking Ice

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Hear works for chamber rock ensembles, like the English band Icebreaker and the Bang on a Can All-Stars on this edition of New Sounds. Listen to Michael Gordon’s rhythmically-driven “Yo Shakespeare,” which has three types of dance rhythms going on simultaneously, but still feels danceable. The piece has actually been used by a dance company - Elliot Feld’s, but was written for Icebreaker. Then there’s Gavin Bryars’ “The Archangel Trip” inspired by a documentary film about two Russian icebreakers that ply the seas above the northern coasts of Russia, also written for Icebreaker. From a brand-new release called “Elevated,” listen to Bang on a Can composer David Lang’s psalm-derived “How To Pray,” for Hammond organ, piano, electric guitar and drums. Plus, the Bang on a Can All-Stars perform Phil Kline's schizophrenic, contemplative "Exquisite Corpses."


Volans: a Committed Modernist

Friday, October 12, 2007

Kevin Volans studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel in Cologne and later became Stockhausen’s teaching assistant. While in Cologne, he and his colleagues explored the idea of cross-fertilizing different musical traditions (i.e. African and European), to arrive at a new musical perception - a bit like "introducing an African computer virus into the heart of Western contemporary music." He concentrated on the interlocking techniques, shifting downbeats, the energy and the joy in traditional African music, while he eschewed bringing "exotic instruments" into Western music. Sticking to homemade harpsichords, along with the whooping, nasal sound of the viola da gamba, he experimented with new techniques and new aesthetics. Jump up to the 21st Century, where the South African-born, Irish-based composer Volans considers himself "a committed modernist," and on this New Sounds, we'll hear some of his recently recorded works.


New Sounds Live Post-rocks Part II

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Bassoon rock. Chamber jazz. Delicate drums. Paradoxes or Post-Rock? That's for you to enjoy and if you like, decide, on this edition of New Sounds. Recorded from a recent New Sounds Live event at Merkin Hall, listen to concert hall instruments doing the rock thing, rock instruments plucked and finessed in something of a classical vein, and experimental music veering in a jazz improv way. This is part two of the concert, where you can hear some of each set of music from the Kentucky ensemble Rachel’s and NY-based group Clogs, plus a special encore tune.


Revelation: Music Meet Math

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Guest Michael Harrison presents "Revelation," a major work for piano in the alternate tuning system known as "just intonation." Today, rather than referring to a specific historical tuning, "just intonation" represents an almost infinite variety of tunings which are based upon the principles of whole number ratios. (Like how an octave is a 2:1 ratio, where the higher note vibrates twice as fast as the lower note.) When certain complex ratios are used in "just intonation" -like the 64:63 ratio that Harrison has used in "Revelation" - the music shimmers with exotic resonance, or depending on your viewpoint, phase-shifts, beats, and bends unsettling tones between the notes of the scale that our Western ears might not be used to. On this new recording of "Revelation," Harrison uses his "harmonic piano," where it is possible to play 24 notes per octave. Just listen to the results on this New Sounds.


Contemporary Traditional Music

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

We hear from the latest recording by Yo Yo Ma & the Silk Road Ensemble, "New Impossibilities," which interprets tradition-based and/or newly composed works inspired by the historic splendors of the Silk Road. Also, new music ghazals from the Indian-born Canadian Kiran Ahluwalia, who now lives in New York City.


Solo Strings

Monday, October 08, 2007

On this New Sounds, hear some solo works for plucked and hammered strings by the likes of pianists Eleanor Sandresky and Robin Holcomb, and avant-garde harpist Hélène Breschand. Paris-based Breschand is a creative harpist from the new-music end of things, though she’s also a member of several improvising ensembles. "Le goût du sel" is her first solo album as a leader where she finds a place between written music and risk-taking improvisation. Also, Eleanor Sandresky is a self-titled “Choreographic Pianist,” stemming from her idea of the concert-as-theatre. Her work, “A Sleeper’s Notebook,” which we’ll hear parts of tonight, is a cycle based on kinds of sleep, both rapid eye movement and dream states. The live experience of this piece intertwines music and dance, while exploring the connections between sound and how one creates it physically at the piano. Plus, there’s also the fragile solo piano pieces of Robin Holcomb and more.


World Tour

Sunday, October 07, 2007

From frenetic crazy Bulgarian wedding music to the blown-out amplified sounds of thumb pianos, feast your ears on a smorgasbord of world music for this New Sounds program. Hear Ivo Papasov and Yuri Yunakov’s infectious Bulgarian be-bop once outlawed by the Soviets. There’s also fierce Flamencobilly-Rock from Martires del Campas, featuring screaming electric guitars combined with palmas (handclaps) and woody percussion, and Chico Ocano‘s blistering, raw-edged vocals. And not to be outdone, listen to a Congolese band whose electrified kalimbas (thumb pianos) wired to used car parts, a pots-and-pans rhythm section, and megaphone loudspeakers, are inexorably danceable. And much more.


Bottoms Up!

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Telepathically tight and musically adventurous, the members of the Bad Plus test the limits of what an acoustic bass-drums-piano band can do. This time around, their latest release, “Suspicious Activity?” contains mostly originals, with some doses of seriousness, taken with a shot of abandon, a chaser of meditation, some communion with jazz forebearers, and the inevitable cheekiness. On this New Sounds program, we’ll sample from “Suspicious Activity?”, and dig into the new record from the Brad Mehldau Trio. The Trio’s “Day is Done” features more interpretations of tunes you might recognize - a Radiohead tune here, a Beatles song there, Nick Drake songs, and a version of the Burt Bacharach tune “Alfie.” Also, there’s music by bass virtuoso Michael Manring from a new solo CD of works, recorded without overdubs, and containing the oft-requested “Selene.” And so much more.


Music for Prepared Piano

Friday, October 05, 2007

Popularized by John Cage to approximate the sound of a percussion orchestra, the prepared piano has been used by composers like Arvo Pärt, Mikel Rouse, and of course Cage himself. In Cage's use, the preparations consist of nuts, bolts and pieces of rubber to be lodged between and entwined around the strings, and can sound like mbiras, marimbas, bells, wood blocks, Indonesian gamelan instruments, to name a few. Mikel Rouse digitally incorporated sampled sounds of John Cage’s prepared piano into"International Cloud Atlas," the score to a Merce Cunningham dance piece "eyeSpace." Plus, Arvo Pärt made extensive use of a prepared piano in his double concerto for two violins, string orchestra, and prepared piano, "Tabula Rasa." Perhaps we'll also hear from Jason Moran, and more.


Big Works, Big Ideas

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Relatively small excerpts from relatively large-scale works fill this New Sounds program. We'll hear from David Borden's 12 part musical cycle, nearly 3 hours long - "The Continuing Story of Counterpoint." Dubbed the "Goldberg Variations" of minimalism, Borden mixes strict counterpoint with dense textures and high energy electronics. Also, we'll listen to a portion of Michael Gordon's 52 minute monster, "Trance," whose layers of short riffs and noisy phrases start to feel like a dangerous multi-car pileup on the freeway. Plus, listen to some of the ginormous 4 hour work by Philip Glass, his "Music in Twelve Parts," from a new live recording by the composer himself and the Philip Glass Ensemble to celebrate his 70th Birthday year.


Slavic Rocker Gets Serious

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Goran Bregovic, guitarist and composer, was a rock hero in the former Yugoslavia with his band Bijelo Dugme (White Button.) When he tired of that, he moved on to film scores, making incredible music to accompany the films of Emir Kusturica (Time of the Gypsies, Arizona Dream, Undreground.) Bregovic has written for Iggy Pop, Ofra Haza, and Cesaria Evora, to name a few. His compositions marry the sounds of a gypsy brass band with traditional Bulgarian polyphonies, those of an electric guitar and traditional percussion with an unmistakable rock accent. A rowdy brass band, bagpipes, a string ensemble, a tuxedo-clad all-male choir from Belgrade, and traditional Bulgarian and gypsy singers make up his dynamic Orchestra for Weddings and Funerals. Tonight, on this edition of New Sounds, John Schaefer talks with Goran in the studio and samples some of his music.


Downtown, Everything's Waiting for You

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

For this New Sounds, listen to some “downtown” versions of ska, folk, country, jazz, chamber music and blues. We'll hear from drummer/composer John Hollenbeck, trombone player/composer Josh Roseman, along with the violin-based folk-chamber of Carla Kihlstedt. There's also music by Joel Harrison and Elliott Sharp. And more.


Drawing From Hindu Scriptures

Monday, October 01, 2007

On this New Sounds program, listen to Western Music inspired by Hindu scriptures, including works by Benjamin Verdery, Douglas J. Cuomo, and Philip Glass. The texts of these works draw mainly from about 700 verses of sacred text known as the Bhagavad Gita, a dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna which takes place on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Philip Glass, in his opera “Satyagraha,” sets parts of the Bhagavad Gita in the classical Sanskrit, while embracing both Indian music and the political and spiritual philosophies of Mahatma Gandhi. We’ll listen to excerpts from the Glass opera and we’ll also hear a work that shares the same name, Benjamin Verdery’s “Satyagraha.” Verdery’s piece is based on an eight-note raga, with nods to both Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Johannes Brahms. Rounding out the show is music by Douglas J. Cuomo (perhaps best known for writing the theme for Sex And The City), also with text from the Bhagavad Gita. We’ll listen to Cuomo’s new acoustic opera/music-theatre work, “Arjuna’s dilemma,” which combines Eastern and Western vocal and instrumental music, Qawali style sufi singing, and jazz improvisation.