Back in stock
Epigram And Evolution: Complete Piano Works
These piano pieces were written at every turning point in Roger Reynolds’ creative life, marking his evolution. The music is driven by relentless attacks toward catharsis, but also bittersweet chords, and trembling, rolling, wandering or sweeping masses of sound. We feel as though we are being pushed around by forces beyond human imagination. This sense of being carried away by an uninterrupted undercurrent may be the image of the world we live in. The featured pianists are the legendary Yuji Ta…
Responses To Ives
“Responses to Ives” was conceived in 2003 by pianist Heather O’Donnell as a way to acknowledge the 50th anniversary of Charles Ives’s death (May 19, 2004). She approached composers spanning a generation, known to have strong affinities for Ives and asked them to write a “musical reflection” on the presence of Ives in their lives and work. The set was premiered at the MaerzMusik Festival in Berlin in 2004 in the midst of a twelve hour extravaganza of Ives. In the months following repeat perform…
Complete String Quartets
The first complete recording of Xenakis’ string quartets. The first new recording of Xenakis’ first three quartets since 1994. The only available recording of Xenakis’ last quartet, “Ergma”, from 1994. The first commercial release by the JACK Quartet, a young New York/Boston based group that has been garnering high praise for their performances of complex and challenging new music. The members of the quartet met while attending the Eastman School of Music, New York. The quartet has since stud…
Piano Sonatas
Chris Newman is a contemporary composer, painter, author and performance artist living in Berlin. This is the first recording of Newman’s Piano Sonatas, a large and important aspect to his work. The renowned British piano virtuoso and composer Michael Finnissy performs the four sonatas here. Newman and Finnissy have been collaborators for over a quarter century, ensuring definitive performances. Composer supervised recordings. Liner notes by the composer and Michael Finnissy. From 1976-79, C…
Silenced Voices
The Barton Workshop & others. Frank Denyer & James Fulkerson, music directors. 'Woman, Viola and Crow' (2004) with Elisabeth Smalt, muted viola, voice, percussion sounds. 'Two Beacons' (2005) with Harma Everts, voice; Boris Visser, muted violin; Rozemarie Heggen, muted double-bass; Neil Sorrell, sarangi; Tobias Liebezeit & Juan Martinez Cortès, percussion; Jos Zwaanenburg, Melkorta Olafsdottir, Ayano Akubo, flutes; Joeri de Vente, horn; Yula Andrews, Ella Dangerfield, Catherine Guy, Lucinda Guy,…
Sketch of Now
Tim Hodgkinson co-founded the politically and musically radical free-jazz/progressive rock group Henry Cow in 1968, which also featured guitarist Fred Frith. He regards his membership in this group, with the opportunity to work closely and collectively with other instrumentalists in developing new sound worlds, as the foundation of his musical education. In addition to composing, Hodgkinson continues to perform as an improviser (clarinets, saxes and keyboards) and considers the practice of impro…
Italian Surf Academy : Barbarella Reloaded
"Italian Surf Academy has been exploring the sound related to 1960’s cinema since its first record, The American Dream (Mode Avant 13), a collection of music from Italian noir, horror and spaghetti western movies. In 2013 the Italian/French festival “Suona Francese” commissioned us to make a monographic program, but with the concept that it must somehow relate to French culture. We choose Barbarella — the classic 1968 sexual revolution icon directed by Roger Vadim, and starring Jane Fonda — beca…
The Dream Keeper
Jazz interpretations of Hughes' poetry with Eric Mingus (voice); David Amram (piano); Larry Simon (director, arranger, guitar), Groove Bacteria.
Live at Grenoble Jazz Festival 2010
A unique musical journey by three outstanding musicians exploring jazz, improvisation and electronic music. Percussionist/composer Roland Auzet with performer/composer Pierre Jodlowski invited the legend of French jazz and improvised music, Michel Portal (who premiered Pierre Boulez’s “Domain,” Boulez said that Portal is “blessed with an imaginative virtuosity”) to form Trio PAJ in 2007.
This daring collaboration reflects their influence of various artists and styles, from Boulez to Stockhausen…
Respect in Yule
Respect In Yule promises to be among the most fun and eclectic holiday albums ever – the album ranges from introspective to ecstatic, from the popular to the obscure, the sacred to the secular. In choosing the repertoire, The Respect Sextet wanted to pull together some of their favorite holiday music from all genres and view them through Respect-colored glasses. Featuring compositions by Misha Mengelberg, Loudon Wainwright III, Frank Loesser, Robbie Robertson (of The Band), Thelonious Monk, Jule…
Italian Surf Academy : The American Dream
Marco Cappelli, electric guitar, Luca Lo Bianco, bass guitar, Francesco Cusa, drums, with special guest Gaia Mattiuzzi, voice.
Les Nuages en France
Marco Cappelli, guitar. Ken Filiano, double bass. Satoshi Takeishi, percussion. “… La Nuages en France is what happens when you cross one of Europe’s best and brightest new music classical guitarists/composers with the best of New York’s avant jazz/improv scene. The sonics recall the lusciousness of Ralph Towner’s ECM work, but the compositional/improvisational smarts and depth of Marco’s classical chops and background on this recording are unlike anything I’ve heard. Also, Marco has devel…
Voices: Ten Improvisations
This superb pairing of two top-flight improvisors reminds me of why I listen to this music. It’s not about ‘music’, it’s about sounds and their making. It’s a given that these two can really ‘play’. Joe McPhee established that in the immediate post-Coltrane era, and Heward – while I know little about him except that he’s also a visual artist who recorded a duo album on Avant with Steve Lacy – I’m sure he can really whack those tubs. The point, however, is that they don’t ‘just play’, they also l…
The Piano Works 7 - Chess Serenade
A major discovery and first recording of an important Cage piece from 1944. In 1944, John Cage was invited to participate in “The Imagery of Chess” exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York City. The artists included Calder, Noguchi, Motherwell, Breton, Duchamp, Ernst, Man Ray, Tanning and other leading surrealists.Cage contributed a painting entitled “Chess Pieces”. It was purchased at the show and went into a private collection. For decades it was deemed lost and was (almost) forgotten…
Strange and Sacred Noise
** 2021 Stock ** John Luther Adams is an Alaskan composer. For Adams, Alaska is not a catalogue of ideas and sounds, instead, Alaska is a provocation. For all of its enormity, Alaska leans inward towards essential qualities and purified forces, and in Adams’ music we find this same sense of space and the same tendency inward towards the purified. His is an intimate and focused music that reverberates in a large place. Strange and Sacred Noise is a monumental work for percussion quartet in 9 move…
Faint Traces
Chamber Works 1973-2001. Frank Denyer's (b.1943, London) music is the work of a truly original mind, one that sees and hears the world just a little differently. The six pieces on this CD are unlike the music of any other composer working today, celebrating the richness of acoustic sound in all its inexhaustible variety. The composer supervised performances by The Barton Workshop, which Denyer co-founded in 1990.
La Terre et le Feu
** 2021 Stock ** This disc of French composer Joël-François Durand’s music amplifies his ongoing interest in the classical ‘four elements’: air, earth, fire and water. World class performers include the London Sinfonietta, BBC Symphony Orchestra, conductor Pierre-André Valade, and renowned Swedish organist Hans-Ola Ericcsson. The oboe concerto, La terre et le feu features a hallmark of Durand’s work: rising figures that gradually strain upwards. The work consists of an introduction and four prin…
From Zero
Four films on JOHN CAGE by Frank Scheffer and Andrew Culver. Mode celebrates its 20th Anniversary in 2004 with the release of a major film on John Cage by renowned Dutch director Frank Scheffer in collaboration with Cage's long-time associate Andrew Culver. The group of films, entitled From Zero, are:* 19 QUESTIONS: Cage answers 19 questions on a variety of subjects, using chance operations to determine the duration of his colorful and often witty answers. A unique opportunity to view the Cagean…
Labyrinthe de Minotaur
** 2021 Stock ** French composer Alain Bancquart (b.1934) is one of the leading composers of microtonal music in Europe. Labyrinthe du Minotaur explores the myth of the Minotaur and the labyrinthe. This large scale piece constantly delves into microtonal and harmonic relationships together with a lyrical polyphony. It is based on texts by his wife, author Marie-Claire Bancquart. The unusual instrumental ensemble incorporates (in addition to the above musicians): pianos in quarter- and sixteenth-…
Volume 1: Chansons Pour Le Corps
With recent releases on John Zorn's Tzadik label among others, Luc Ferrari is enjoying a well deserved renaissance. After studies with Messiaen and formative visits to Darmstadt in the '50s, Ferrari (born Paris, 1929), with Pierre Schaeffer, was one of the co-founders of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in 1959. In the sixties he worked with the Ensemble Instrumental de Musique Contemporaine de Paris and made the first French television documentaries on new music, between 1964-69, he ta…