My review for I Care If You Listen.
Category: Percussion
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1996+21: limina
limina, for two pianos and percussion (1996), was composed as an exploratory diversion between larger projects. The title, “thresholds,” is meant to suggest points of transition or spaces between categories.
There are two sections; the longer and more eventful first is in duple metre and features a pop-like, four-chord progression in A major. The second is in triple metre and A-flat major, with an outro-like quality. The transition between sections introduces more complex harmonies and a percussion break.
All of the music is built around the initial melodic pattern, a loop that descends in fifths and ascends back to its starting point in fourths. This line is in fact the opening chord unfolded horizontally, and it becomes the rhythmic motor, layered against itself in canon. The final chord is the same as the opening one, though transposed down a semitone.
Composed and recorded August 1996, Korg 01/WFD
Remixed May 2017Photo: composer, 1997
Music and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2017
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Best of 2015
Some great new discoveries and otherwise the usual company in abundance.
John Adams Absolute Jest · Grand Pianola Music San Francisco Symphony · Michael Tilson Thomas · John Adams (SFS Media)
Bang on a Can All Stars Field Recordings (Cantaloupe)
eighth blackbird Filament (Cedille)
Mahan Esfahani Time Present and Time Past (Archiv)
Morton Feldman · Erik Satie · John Cage Rothko Chapel [Gnossiennes, In a Landscape, etc.] Kim Kashkashian · Sarah Rothenberg · Steven Schick · Houston Chamber Choir · Robert Simpson (ECM)
Floating Points Elaenia (Luaka Bop/Pluto)
Kendrick Lamar To Pimp a Butterfly (Top Dawg · Aftermath · Interscope)
Steve Martland Band Martland (NMC)
Steve Reich Music for 18 Musicians Ensemble Signal · Third Coast Percussion · Brad Lubman (Harmonia Mundi)
Max Richter Sleep (Deutsche Grammophon)
Linda Catlin Smith Thought and Desire Eve Egoyan (Earwitness Editions)
Stephen Sondheim Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano Anthony de Mare (ECM)
Ann Southam Glass Houses for Marimba Taktus (Centrediscs)
Tennyson Like What EP (self-released)
Kamasi Washington The Epic (Brainfeeder)
John Williams Star Wars: The Force Awakens Gustavo Dudamel · William Ross · John Williams (Walt Disney)
reissues · remasters
Bernard Herrmann Obsession Special Archival Edition (Music Box)
The Spinners Spinners (BBR)
John Williams A.I. Artificial Intelligence Expanded Archival Collection (La-La Land)
John Williams Jaws and Jaws 2 (Intrada)
John Williams, Herman Stein, Hans J. Salter, Joseph Mullendore, Alexander Courage, Cyril J. Mockridge, Gerald Fried, Leith Stevens, Robert Drasnin, Fred Steiner and others Lost in Space 50th Anniversary Soundtrack Collection (La-La Land)
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Radio Rewrite Is ‘Everything’ and Then Some
An excerpt of my review of the Nonesuch album for I Care If You Listen; full version available with a subscription.
EL MAHBOOB 