Gemma Peacocke - The threshold we cross with closed eyes … ideally shows off Third Coast's increasingly more common branding of a rock n' roll classical percussion quartet. Another pandemic piece,  Gemma Peacocke 's  The threshold we cross with closed eyes was recorded by  Third Coast Percussion  in 2021 and officially uploaded last week. A thirty minute work for percussion quartet and electronics, threshold is a large scale example of what Peacock calls 'avant-pop', combining popular harmonic progressions and drumset grooves with Library of Congress archival recordings and unconventional percussion instruments. In fact,  threshold  opens with all players using waldteufel, a small friction drum also nicknamed 'forest devil', which returns at pivotal transition points in the piece. The archival recordings are sampled and included in the electronics part, where Peacocke curates tales of arrival from early American families. Peacocke's popular musical la...

 Karl Jenkins - One World Jenkins' signature sound prioritizes a false sense of approachability, while in actuality it poorly attempts to rip off famous film, popular and traditional music. One World is Sir Karl Jenkins 's latest additional to his large religious works for soloists, choir and orchestra. It is also more proof that the Welsh composer has not developed his compositional style nor technique since the early 90's. One World overuses already overused musical clichés and is so densely orchestrated that the sound becomes a wall of grey mush. Jenkins' signature sound prioritizes a false sense of approachability, while in actuality it poorly attempts to rip off famous film, popular and traditional music. The album-length work, commissioned by the World Choir for Peace and World Orchestra for Peace, uses a wide array of religious and secular texts, allowing for Jenkins to simultaneously insult multiple religions and activism groups. The text setting is static and m...

 Helen Grime - Meditations on Joy Grime's work continues to be available for outside audiences to happily embrace contemporary classical music, without ever sacrificing her integrity. Scottish composer Helen Grime was once again represented at the BBC Proms with the European premiere of her recent work, Meditations on Joy . The original premiere delayed due to the pandemic, this 2019 work is set in three sections, exploring Grime's personal experiences of joy through the act of composing. While a truly delightful piece, it is apparent Grime's definition of both meditation and joy are wildly interpretive. The music consists of a wide range of emotional characters and sounds, but is always in forward motion. Her joy in the outside movements seems to be found in the stark contrast of sounds, while in the spinning middle section feels like an excited, distractable puppy. Meditations on Joy  is another prime example of Grime's excellent mastery of compositional craft. It i...

 Ashley Bathgate - 8-Track album review 8-Track  explores a younger generation's response to Reich's  Cello Counterpoint , a new recording of which culminates the album. Ashley Bathgate 's latest solo album expands the repertoire for soloist plus pre-recorded layered tracks, essentially creating an album of works for a one person cello octet. Released by New Focus Recordings , 8-Track  explores a younger generation's response to Reich's Cello Counterpoint , a new recording of which culminates the album. Working with layering the same instrument over and over poses timbral, compositional and studio challenges. The album's production, combined with Bathgate's playing, makes it impossible to determine which of the eight tracks is supposed to be the live one, whether or not that's good or bad is up to interpretation. While overall 8-Track  retains its interest, at times the clean post-production creates a lack of depth to the implied cello ensemble. Bathgate...

 Roger Rudenstein - An American Requiem - Part 1 More of a warning than a review... Recently, I became aware of the so-called classical composer,  Roger Rudenstein , through targeted paid ads via multiple social media services. A first red flag, especially coming from an individual who claims to be more popular than Philip Glass and John Adams. This American Requiem , a secular mass, is in fact just another form of some old guy complaining about politics and the younger generation. It is both irritating and disheartening to see a composer this out of touch with reality attempting to utilize modern political issues to bring attention to his music, as opposed to the other way around. Topic of the piece aside, Rudenstein's actual music is honestly just awful. The Requiem is listed as having a live orchestra, chorus, and soloists, but Rudenstein has added in distracting, cheap MIDI replacements (not to mention the live singers are poorly recorded and out of tune). The text setting...

  between systems and grounds: the overshot sessions   album review between systems and grounds has created a confidently gorgeous album of interdisciplinary explorations.   A collaboration between composer Paula Matthusen and visual artist Olivia Valentine , the overshot sessions is the second album released by duo between systems and grounds , who unconventionally combines live electronics with live textile making. The clean electronic pulses, literally woven with mechanical clicking, interlock to create an emotionally moving and bewitching album. The five tracks on the overshot sessions  fall somewhere between improvisatory electronic music and experimental machining. between systems and grounds has truly found its artistic niche, exploring an interdisciplinary world completely new - an aspect becoming increasingly rarer throughout the 21st century. The album's Covid-esque influences are also abundantly clear, with the duo transforming latency bugs into musi...

 Joshua Nichols - "Metropolis" piano sonata Overall,  Metropolis  did no more than simply exist for twenty minutes, and offered little incentive to listen to the remainder of the album. "Metropolis" piano sonata  is the titular work of Joshua Nichols ' recently released album of piano music. Distributed by Summit Records , Metropolis  collects all of Nichols' major works for solo piano, here presented by three different performers. The sonata  takes shape in three movements -  "Metropolis", "Meadow", and "Suburb" - all programmatic titles with corresponding musical moods. Played here by pianist Fanya Lin , who presents a highly nuanced performance and does not shy away from  Metropolis ' high technical demands. The opening movement, "Metropolis", juxtaposes thunderous, high-rise chords with ghastly single notes, before sprinting into a steady eighth note motor. "Meadow", while the slow, middle movement, c...

 Emad Attar - Her Eyes Her Eyes  is a short, jazz-inspired work for string orchestra by composer and orchestrator Emad Attar. While not outright boring, there is very little to hold one's interest, even though the piece is only three minutes long. One can easily discern Attar's style from this work, that is akin to forcing the orchestra to play a thinly-veiled pop song. The faux-Romantic theme feels rushed and simply thrown onto the paper (and this was well before learning that the entire piece was written over just three days). This all being said, Her Eyes  makes for a fun, easy listen, while demonstrating a film-score inspired level of string orchestration. listen to the recording session by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra here

 Jeremy Thurlow - Ouija Thurlow finds a way for all of these sounds to fit together in an engaging and enjoyable manner, while Skaerved completely nails the rapid shifts and insanely high leaps. Ouija  is a five section, twenty minute long haze of a piece for solo violin and electronics. Jeremy Thurlow has combined tradition with improvisation, resulting in a work fit for some alien Bach. While composed back in 2012, Peter Sheppard Skaerved , the violinist who premiered the work, recently released the recording of the world premiere (which you can listen to  here ). Skaerved, renown for his interpretations of contemporary violin works, brings his all to this performance, making it nearly impossible to discern his improvisations from Thurlow's virtuosic writing. While Ouija  is split up into five sections, the piece functions better when perceived as one larger scale work. Thurlow's implementation of electronics is interesting in that is clearly enhances the solo vio...