Yotam Haber - Bloodsnow album review Haber composes wildly stimulating music, with sections ranging from hair-raising to ominously meditative. Currently on faculty at UMKC Conservatory, Yotam Haber composes wildly stimulating music, with sections ranging from hair-raising to ominously meditative. His most recent release, Bloodsnow , out on Sideband Records , is a collection of journeys, with reflections of his experiences in Alaska encasing the album. As a whole, Haber's music feeds into the traditional complexity of contemporary classical music, but does so with gripping dignity.  Bloodsnow , the opening titular work performed by the Talea Ensemble , is the first in Haber's cycle of pieces inspired by his time spend in the Alaskan wilderness. The cold potential of natural violence underlines Haber's music, placing the listener perpetually on edge. The work, scored for flute, clarinet, string trio and piano, with the strings and piano doubling on harmonicas, completely ...

 Fatrin Krajka - The Space In Between   album review Krajka focuses on approachability in his simple and tonal music, relying on harmonic cliches to evoke a melancholic emotional response. Albanian-American composer and pianist, Fatrin Krajka , is known for his film scores and continued approach to classically inspired minimalism. His latest album release, The Space In Between , intimately connects individual perspectives with a sense of communal emotion. The Space In Between is a full-length album for piano and strings divided up into 4-5 minute long tracks. Within his exploration of the short-form piece, Krajka solidly focuses on approachability in his simple and tonal music, relying on harmonic cliches to evoke a melancholic emotional response from the listener. There is a negligible difference in his approach to scoring for film and this album of more traditional classical music. While I would have appreciated some experimentation and variation within Krajka's minimal...

 Paul Royse - Swinging Seraphim Royse provides a great example of a classically trained composer turned indie-pop artist. Swinging Seraphim is the latest release by record label Belts and Whistles . The album consists of six stunning art-pop songs for voice and piano, composed and performed by the Philadelphia-based  Paul Royse , who also goes by Very Very Hot Evil. As a whole, the aesthetic of the songs lean more into a progressive rock/pop style, which is further strengthened by pop/rock mixing techniques of Johanna Baumann . The concept of the classical composer as an indie singer/songwriter has been becoming more and more popular. In contrast, Royse provides a great example of a classically trained composer turned indie-pop artist, rather than a true blend of the two genres. All of the songs rely heavily on Royse' complex piano accompaniments. It is quite impressive to hear the composition/piano/voice all done by the same performer, but one has to wonder if it will be equa...

 Thomas Schuttenhelm - luminaries at the tonehenge A fun new work by Thomas Schuttenhelm , luminaries at the tonehenge , premiered at Tidewater Classical Guitar by the New York City Guitar Quartet . Schuttenhelm, being a guitarist himself, aptly utilized a full spectrum of extended techniques; the first full minute of the work solely comprised of various percussive tapping and knocking sounds. luminaries at the tonehenge developed these rhythmic percussion effects into a fully established musical groove with an intensely rigid sense of pulse, perfectly maintained by the quartet. By adding a funk-tango bassline and noise-adjacent techniques, Schuttenhelm manufactured an effective and cohesive backdrop to place melodic fragments and high dissonant chords. luminaries is an exquisite example of what a contemporary classical guitar quartet can accomplish and Schuttenhelm writes for the ensemble in a manner which is idiomatic for the players and engaging to the audience. watch the full ...

John Luther Adams - Darkness and Scattered Light album review Darkness and Scattered Light  is an unmissable entry in the catalogue of John Luther Adams' music and classical music in general. Darkness and Scattered Light  is John Luther Adams ' latest release through Cold Blue Music . Featuring the late double bass virtuoso Robert Black , Darkness and Scattered Light is a collection of world premiere recordings of Adams' music for the double bass. Longtime collaborators and friends, Adams' music and Black's dedication to the promotion of contemporary composers pair together perfectly. Black's total mastery and understanding of his instrument fosters a sense of pure, unencumbered musicality.  Darkness and Scattered Light is an unmissable entry in the catalogue of John Luther Adams' music and classical music in general. The album is a fitting musical memorial to the genius of Robert Black, and while so tragic, we are all incredibly fortunate to have Darkness a...

 Jerome Begin Wilderness  explores the intricacies of the acoustic-electric timbre spectrum in a manner which is rhythmically and musically stimulating. Wilderness , the latest release by Sandbox Percussion combines a curious exploration of acoustic instruments with live-time electronics and highly theatrical writing. Composed by Jerome Begin in 2016, Wilderness is a multi-movement work originally written to accompany a contemporary dance production by Brian Brooks Moving Company . Begin, acclaimed for his theatre and dance scores, intrinsically incorporates a sense of motion into his music, which still comes across in a concert setting. Wilderness explores the intricacies of the acoustic-electric timbre spectrum in a manner which is rhythmically and musically stimulating. The album starts off with quite a literal Entrance . The militaristic arpeggios of pitched toms create a sense of how much physical space the work encompasses, setting up the listener for the remainder of ...

 Zachary James - Song of Myself less like a classical song cycle and closer to a modern beatnik poetry reading. Zachary James , renown operatic and music theatre bass, makes his compositional debut with Song of Myself . Comprising of twelve songs, Song of Myself  sets sections of Walt Whitman's similarly-named poem. James presents Whitman's text without reduction or addition, with each included section of the extended poem separated into its own track. James is joined here by three performers (and an uncredited pianist): Ariel Campos on percussion, Wick Simmons on cello, and Frederick Poholek on guitar. The album comes across as less like a classical song cycle and closer in resemblance to a modern interpretation of a beatnik poetry reading. There is no sense of melody and little sense of prosody in James' setting. Each word of the text is cleanly separated, making it easy for himself to laboriously enunciate each syllable, which is not always necessary. The slow, dirge...

 Austin Wulliman - The News from Utopia  album review The News from Utopia  scatters dream-like fragments of sound and noise, combining contemporary musical techniques with electronics and over-dubbing. While separated into six distinct tracks, The News from Utopia  functions as a single, concert-length work in the form of an album. The upcoming release by JACK Quartet violinist and now composer, Austin Wulliman , brings listeners through a distorted, yet somehow familiar crusade, culminating with "The Lazy River", inspired by Zadie Smith's short story of the same name. Releasing on Bright Shiny Things  September 15, The News from Utopia  scatters dream-like fragments of sound and noise, combining contemporary musical techniques with electronics and over-dubbing.  Starting off the album with a high-pitched, almost alarm-like beeping, "Docks" introduces us to Wulliman's personal alternate reality. Soon after, he introduces glissandi and percussive laye...

Nikolaus Gerszewski - ART Shockingly,  ART  accomplishes nothing musically, while sounding complex and intricate. Visual artist and composer Nikolaus Gerszewski  is an avid organizer and supporter of experimental music. His set of pieces for string quartet, ART , is released as a full-length album of the same name by Flea, a new music label. ART is a collection of short sound experiments primarily utilizing microtonal inflections, gradual glissandi, and long repeated sections. Gerszewski draws on his background as a visual artist to give us these pieces, which are representational of the literal act of creating a painting through slow, even brushstrokes. ART is certainly an exploration within contemporary classical string quartet playing. While being beautiful and harmonious, the work pushes against Gerszewski's stated personal musical goals. Shockingly, ART accomplishes nothing musically, while sounding complex and intricate. The album is broken into two sectio...

 Third Coast Percussion - Between Breaths album review Third Coast Percussion 's upcoming album, Between Breaths , is a collection of world premiere recordings of works all specifically composed for the quartet. The album, released by Cedille Records  on September 8th, is a follow up to TCP's 2022 album, this time exploring meditation and breaching sonic landscapes. The included works on Between Breaths  are all expertly performed here by the quartet, as their style leans into the group's strengths. The album opens with a new five-movement work by Missy Mazzoli . Millennium Canticles musically depicts a post-apocalyptic group of humans looking to recreate old rituals. Mazzoli's music is as nonsensical as it sounds. The actual fleeting moments of music are quite pleasant, but the Canticles  are disoriented with loud, audible breathing (assuming this is from whence the album title comes), awkwardly half-shouted counting (which sounds reminiscent of high school drumline...

 Amaro Dubois - Luz Album Review Luz  continues Dubois' mission to showcase Latin American composers and music.  Amaro Dubois , viola, and Tingting Yao , piano, have collaborated to bring us Luz,  an album of 20th and 21st century works for viola and piano. Distributed by Navona Records , Luz  continues Dubois' mission to showcase Latin American composers and music.  Starting off the album with the titular work, Edmundo Villani-Côrtez's  Luz opens heavy-handedly with its mood painting. The rising fourths arpeggios in the piano accompaniment is a gesture long associated with the rising sun and daylight. Villani-Côrtez quickly introduces a beautiful, cantabile melody in the solo viola. The rest of Luz  continues in a neo-Romantic vein, as Villani-Côrtez is known and well suited to Dubois' lush playing. The duo then brings us two short and fun pieces by the African-American composer Florence Price. Elfentanz and Deserted Garden were both originally c...