The modern pen gets a chance to cut like a sword on these three new releases from Neuma Records.
Spanish composer Juan J. G. Escudero has his piece interpreted and performed by a mix an d matching team of Emille-Anne Gendron/vi, Christopher Grosss/vcel, Benjamin Fingland/cl-bcl, Molly Morkoski/p, Josh Perry Perc, conducted by Benjamin Grow. A couple of the pieces such as “Paginas de Mar” and “Ice Door” are highly intuitive with lots of scratchy percussion, rumbling tones and sounds akin to background noises in the living room. Dark subtones hover on “ Sur la Pente du Talus” while you get either mouth effects or someone playing with a mouthpiece on the gurgling “Das Wort ais Horizont” and the mixing of tone effects and swathing strings on “Underland A20”. Grow directs like a Neopolitan traffic cop.
Robert Carl uses his pen for ideas performed by ensembles ranging from laptop computers to percussion and beyond.
Matthe Russo uses his trombone for enticing textures on the hovering and static “Updraft” with rich ambience is painted in pastels for guitarist Matt Sargent on “ Spectar” . Dark shadows are cast long for “Infinity Avenue” that features Carl conducting and playing laptop, Zach Rowden/b, Matt Sargent/g, Trevor Saint/glock, Henry Birdsey/g and Christopher Beroes-Haigis/cel. A mix of white noise, percussion and hovering tonal currents are palpable on “ The Inevitable Wave(B)” and most intriguing of all is the juxtaposition of 13 chamber instruments and a laptop computer for the lovely musings and direction of the soft abstractions on “Seventh Symphony”. Successful syntheses.
Composer Rick Baitz puts together a series of varying pieces and sizes of bands on this recent album. “Two Poems for Flute and Alto Flute Solo” are dreamily performed by Erin Lesser” while cellist Yves Dhar teams with violinist Jennifer Choi for a wavey “Dark Fire” that waxes and sways. Deep earthy pulses an moods along wit some piercing tones with occasional scratchy strings is performed by Dornelius Dufallo/vi, Audrey Chen/cel, William Hopkins-Jakob Schoenfeld/perc, Yoon Lee/p and Rick Baitz/elc on “Music For a Sacred Pace” while the most lyrical and melodic ideas open up the album on “River of January” with Erin Lesser/fl mixing with strings, percussion and synthesized programs on an energetic collection of solos and ensemble tones. Elegant experiments.