Sextet & Double Sextet
*2022 stock.* "This release couples two of Reich’s “sextets” for the first time: the Sextet of 1984 and the Pulitzer Prize winning Double Sextet of 2007. A striking difference between the two pieces is that the rhythmic world of Sextet mostly consists of a single-meter grooving, while Double Sextet works in the angular, off-kilter shifting meters reminiscent of Reich’s Tehillim (also of Stravinsky). Ekkozone impart a uniquely chamber music feel and color to these works while maintaining their pr…
Absence
"The main focus of Gerald Eckert’s music is frequently not placed on a centrally triggered event or center of action, but on what has been triggered by this event and how the consequences are subsequently developed. In other words, he focuses his sights on what an impulse is followed by. For Außen, von tief innen (Outside, from Deep Within), the consistent subtle and quiet tonal structure of the work is the fine delineation of multiphonics in bass flute and double bass clarinet alongside the ton…
Works for Flute
"Flutist Roberto Fabbriciani continues his releases dedicated to the flute repertoire of single composers with works by Belgian composer Henri Pousseur (1929-2009). Previous releases on Mode featured Aldo Clementi and Bruno Maderna.As with Fabbriciani’s preceeding Clementi and Maderna releases, this Pousseur release marks the first time Pousseur’s works for flute have been collected in one recording. It is important to note that Fabbriciani had a long working relationship with the composer.The s…
For Bunita Marcus
"For Bunita Marcus opens with a clear call to our attention. With these first six notes, we step over the threshold and into the journey of the piece. We know that we are in this for the long haul: Morton Feldman’s late works are notorious for being marathons. He composed For Bunita Marcus in 1985, immediately after his four-hour For Philip Guston, and two years after his six-hour String Quartet (II) These earlier works make an hour-long solo piano piece seem short. Still, it is a long time to …
The Complete Cello Works
"This album collects for the first time four of the most important works from Horatiu Radulescu’s later period, all composed for cello, and all performed by his widow Catherine Marie Tunnell. Radulescu and Tunnell began working together almost immediately upon meeting in 1995. By the time they were married in 1997, Radulescu had already composed for her two of the pieces on this disc (the solo Lux Animae and the cello sonata L’Exil Intérieur), and revised and rededicated her a third, older work …
Works for Organ & for Cello
"Mode’s Horatiu Radulescu Edition, curated with Radulescu’s widow Catherine Marie Tunnell and his publisher Lucero Press, continues with a collection of his works for organ and works with cello.Radulescu’s complete organ works are performed here by German organist Christoph Maria Moosmann, a long-time Radulescu collaborator with a great understanding of his music and sonic goals. Some of the works were written for or dedicated to him. Further definitive recordings are guaranteed by performances …
Harawi
**Deluxe 2LP set with gatefold cover** "Harawi is a cycle of twelve songs scored for soprano and piano composed in 1945. Harawi (known to Spanish speakers as yaraví) designates a song about a fated love that ends in the death of both lovers. Olivier Messiaen remarked that “it is the story of Tristan and Isolde.”The surrealistic text of Harawi is Messiaen’s own. Using the musical structures Messiaen had created for Harawi, he built massive phrases in these songs, expanding space and time, creatin…
Terra che Cammina
"We know Belgian-based pianist Giovanni Di Domenico from his album with Tetterapadequ, and his recent collaboration with Alexandra Grimal, Seminare Vento. On this album, he is joined by John Ruocco on clarinet, Ananta Roosend on violin, Anja Naucler on cello, Claus Kaarsgaard on bass.The music is slow, intimate, precise, and quite expressive. The album starts with solo piano, an eery melody, with sparse notes of the right hand repeating a bluesy phrase. Yet it starts for real with the second pie…
Colour Talk
**CD version** Bram De Looze is a Belgian pianist and composer whose distinct musical vision has found its way through both solo projects and collaborations. His unique technical skill and musical maturity have earned him considerable critical acclaim back home as his work spotlights his far-ranging interests – from traditional classical piano music, to solo improvisations that have often been compared to Keith Jarrett and Jason Moran.
Unconscious Collections
Three fresh and engaging pieces recorded during a meeting in Basel in June 2019 of Argentine guitarist Tomás Cabado and Christoph Schiller on spinet. The first piece is an improvisation, the second a composition by Christoph Schiller, and the final piece is composed by Tomás Cabado.
Chordioid
A double CD of works for violin, piano and vibraphone. One disc is a long piece by J.P.A. Falzone, the other a long piece by Morgan Evans-Weiler. Both are beautiful, delicate chamber works for violin + piano / vibraphone / fortepiano, recorded at Wesleyan College in Connecticut.
Ricercar nell’Ombra
**In process of restock** Since early 1990s, the Lyon based composer, sound artist, and writer, Emmanuel Holterbach, has been issuing a slow trickle of beautiful efforts into the landscape of avant-garde and experimental sound. Predominately focused the discipline of musique concrete, his latest LP, Ricercar nell’Ombra, a collaboration with the Florentine ensemble, Blutwurst, takes both into incredible new realms. Issued by Another Timbre - belonging to their expansive dedication to cutting edge…
Chamber Works
Five chamber works by the Brazilian/Dutch composer Luiz Henrique Yudo, realised with brilliance by Apartment House. Each piece is the transcription into sound of a visual work of art.Luiz Henrique Yudo is a Brazilian-born composer now living in Amsterdam. He composes by transposing visual works of art into sound. “Music coming from structures, labyrinths, alphabets, codes, patterns, architecture, paintings, drawings, sculptures…” The pieces on the CD are wonderfully realised by Apartment House, …
Piano Works
The French pianist and composer Melaine Dalibert possesses an exquisite touch and engagement with his repertoire. On this new album he tackles the stripped-down music of Greek composer Anastassis Philippakopoulos, a key member of the post-Cagean Wandelweiser Collective, tracing out the delicate, sparsely mapped notes from a dozen contemplative, spacious miniatures. The pieces are built around austere melodic fragments, all of which hang pregnant in the air, unfolding carefully before the next p…
Black Sarabande
Black Sarabande expands upon pianist-composer Robert Haigh’s beguiling debut for Unseen Worlds with a collection of intimate and evocative piano-led compositions. Haigh was born and raised in the ‘pit village’ of Worsbrough in South Yorkshire, England. His father, as most of his friends’ fathers, was a miner, who worked at the local colliery. Etched into Haigh’s work are formative memories of the early morning sounds of coal wagons being shunted on the tracks, distant trains passing, and walking…
Songs & Melodies, 1973-1977
Since the mid-1960s, Jon Gibson has played a key role in the development of American avant-garde music. As a versatile reed player, he has performed with everyone from Steve Reich and Philip Glass to Terry Riley and La Monte Young. In the 1970s, Gibson would emerge as a minimalist composer in his own right and release two exceptional albums, Visitations and Two Solo Pieces, on Glass' Chatham Square imprint.Songs & Melodies brings together recordings from 1973 to 1977 (mostly previously unrelease…
Improvement (Don Leaves Linda)
Improvement (Don Leaves Linda) is the first of four operas about the "American" consciousness. The tetralogy, including Foreign Experiences, eL/Aficionado and Now Eleanor's Idea, is based on the notion of a sequence of events seen from four, different points of view. The operas share principal characters and vocal techniques (including the relationship of the voice to instrumental settings). The singers are used interchangeably as soloists and members of a chorus. The immediacy of choral respons…
The Fish That Became the Sun
This CD offers the first recording of Frank Denyer's extraordinary hour-long piece for large ensemble The Fish That Became the Sun (Songs of the Dispossessed), composed between 1991 and 1996. The ensemble includes a huge number of home-made percussion instruments made from discarded materials, as well as obscure instruments such as eunuch flutes, ocarinas and crumhorns. The album comes with a booklet with notes by Frank Denyer and an essay by Michael Turnbull.Musicians include:Octandre Ensemble …
The Boundaries of Intimacy
The Boundaries of Intimacy foregrounds works that are very restrained and quiet, but as always with Frank Denyer, there is a sense of tension or danger in the air that occasionally explodes and cuts across the music."Most of the music on this CD is soft, some of it very soft indeed. To achieve the optimal listening level, think of the musicians as being just over the other side of the room in which you are listening, rather than in another grander space. Imagine them performing intimately, witho…
Žiadba
Žiadba consists of five chamber compositions by the young Slovak composer Adrián Democ, who is currently teaching music at a school in Spain, as he says it is practically impossible to survive as an experimental composer in Eastern Europe. Democ's music is very varied: some of his pieces are quiet and restrained, while others are bursting with life and vigour. His Kvarteto begins with an intricate and fast-moving canon movement, brilliantly played by Apartment House and Ostravska Band / fama Q.