Fresh ideas and sounds are released by the Minnesota-based label Neuma Records. Sort of classical, sort of jazzy, and definitely creative, these latest three show the fermentation of fertile ideas.
Juraj Kojs plays electronics, narrates and composes the material on this album of free flowing chamber opuses. An eight part “Face Forward. Hawai” has him with Adam Marks/p and Eric Umble/cl for some Debussy-ish “At the Sunrise” and “Cinco de Mayo: Dancing Queen” do some peek a boo work on “Among the Coqui Frogs” and a bouncing klezmered “Rainforest Birds”. A IX part “Under the Blanket of Butterflies” with Zach Sheets/fl, Clara Kim/vi, Megan Arns/perc and Wei-Han Wu/p is a mix of Spike Jones on “VII” and “VI” to ominous shadows of “III”. A 14 minute “Where You Are” has Kojs narrating with the five member Splinter Reeds for harmonies set for a Japanese garden. Pastels and free form.
Music from artists 103 miles from the Florida coast is represented in various forms by various artists. Manue Paz directs an ensemble of strings that sounds like something from a Hitchcock film with bagpipes and gaita on “Nife”, while “Memorial” includes lovely soprano voice, piano and cello by Lindsay Kesselman, Oscar Micaelsson and Norbert Lewandowski, respectively. A rotating cast of operatic voices take part in the 5 movemnt “Libertaria Song Cycyle” by Sabrina Pena Young, with the tunes ranging from Lloyd Weber to Britten. Lastly, Lorenzo Iosco’s bass clarinet and Duncan Gifford’s piano produce a reflective and deep “Evolving Spheres”. Modern classical and soundtracks.
Australian Ros Bandt labels herself as an “international environmental sound artist, composer, performer, sound sculptor, sound recordist, designer, improvising musician” in the liner notes. Well! She also plays a surfeit of whistles, flutes, records, harps, tapes and things that go bump in the night with Izzet Kizil, who accompanies her on various shakers, shells, voice and kitchen ware. The result is a mix of water drips and various sounds on “The Tears of Yerebatan Palace”, wind blowing on the dark “Frozen Locks, Athena’s Curse” sounds like a mirage from the Australian desert on “Basilica Dreaming” and meditative moods for “52 Steps to the Future of Water” which combines international words and “stone”. Hallucinations of sounds?