Brutal New Music Reviews

     Duo Étrange - i wish i were dead With their debut album,   Duo Étrange , Sahara von Hattenberger and Vanessa Croome, presents a collection of contemporary works, blurring between art song and chamber music. Supported on some of the pieces by pianist, Joanne Kang, and clarinetist, Airat Ichmouratov,  i wish i were dead  claims to brazenly support contemporary classical music. Even on its fringes, the works are all focused around traditionally pleasant sounds and accessibility. Duo Étrange's mission also comes across as quasi-paradoxical, giving us all newly composed music, but only when directly related to ancient themes and traditional mystic texts.  Two pieces by Jeffrey Fong open the album, new commissions which set excerpts of a Medieval epic poem. Fong's jerky vocal writing is assuaged by Croome's incredibly lyrical voice, but it still results in the musical impression that the composer has no care whether or not the text is hea...

   Portland Percussion Group -  Patterns & Form Their first album out on New Focus Recordings,   Portland Percussion Group 's Patterns & Form  showcases their technical skills and aesthetic range as an ensemble dedicated to percussion chamber music. The three works included on the album were all written with a direct connection to the ensemble. Each approaches different stereotypes associated with percussion music, which tracks as all three composers are either also percussionists or heavily involved in the world of percussion music.  The titular work, Alejandro Viñao's Patterns & Form , is presented in three movements and takes up a little more than half the album. It is by far the strongest of the three pieces presented here, both compositionally and in performance.  Viñao's  work is composed for eight percussionists and piano, with this recording featuring guest pianist Yoko Greeney. The recording and mixing on this piece is in...

  Ensemble Dal Niente - portrait RE / Flux / Pacific Time Ensemble Dal Niente 's recent album features three composers, each of whom have a history of collaboration with the group. The commissioned works all have their own unique approach to Dal Niente's expertise with experimental music. As a whole, the album is an incredible example of how successful new works can be when there is a strong relationship between composers and the ensemble. Igor Santos' portrait R E  opens the album. T he sixteen-minute work for sampler and large ensemble immediately creates a grand sense of atmosphere with electronic white noise and ambient-sounding swells in the ensemble. Pretty quickly, the sampler sounds Santos chooses come across as cliché and the computer start-ups noises gimmicky . Despite this, Santos incorporates some incredible moments of beauty throughout the piece. His use of the recording of Paulo Freire and dec onstructing it with the low instruments in the ensemble is both eng...

 Peter Paulsen - Shanghaied Paisano album review The audience is a floating spectator, journeying across Paulsen's interpretation of Ferlinghetti's poetic documentary. In his latest album, Peter Paulsen , composer and bassist, expands upon his previous chamber jazz output, moving closer to a contemporary third stream. Shanghaied Paisano combines the talents of Paulsen's TurksHeadKnot contemporary trio with the Latin-influenced  Dalí String Quartet . The album, released August 2023 via Navona Records , comprises of the titular, large-scale four-movement work inspired by the poetry of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and closes off with a rousing arrangement of Jobim's Chega de saudade .  Shanghaied Paisano 's opening movement, "And Then Went", starts the audience off with a dissonant chorale led by Chris Bacas on soprano saxophone. Paulsen's clean voicings make the chords approachable and give off a clearly distinguishable melody within the dense harmonies. The re...

 David Biedenbender - All We Are Given We Cannot Hold  album It has taken these weighing emotions and transformed them into pure beauty in the form of art song. With his first monographic album, David Biedenbender continues to prove himself as an chamber music composer while showcasing his delicate text setting ability. Distributed by Blue Griffin Recording , All We Are Given We Cannot Hold  juxtaposes two works for voice and ensemble using text by poet  Robert Fanning  with two older instrumental pieces featuring the Garth Newel Piano Quartet . Overall, album takes the listener on an emotional journey, rapidly swinging between parental worries and pondering natural monolithic beauty. Shell and Wing , a two-part work for soprano and ensemble, establishes a sense of unease from the first fluttering note. Setting newly-written text by Fanning, both the music and poetry contemplate parents' personal fears when sending their children out into the modern world ...

 Constellation Men's Ensemble - Man Up / Man Down Constellation's impeccable blend and intonation brings out a resonant beauty for the duration of the album. After ten years, Constellation Men's Ensemble  has released their debut album, Man Up / Man Down  on the Sono Luminus label. The album's longer and intense titular work is bookended by two shorter bursts of peaceful reflection, Home and manifesto . Constellation's impeccable blend and intonation brings out a resonant beauty for the duration of the album, and are becoming a prominent force within the new music vocal community. Jeffrey Derus ' Home , setting text by Carl Sandburg, opens the album with beauty and tonal simplicity. Derus' music is drawn from his personal experience with choirs, resulting in Constellation creating a beautiful resonance with stellar intonation. Home is in a traditional three-part form, with the middle section in a pulsating quintuple meter. Derus' repetitive text setting...