My interview for I Care If You Listen.
Category: Postclassical
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Best of 2018
Brandon Coleman Resistance
Tigran Hamasyan For Gyumri
Zaki Ibrahim The Secret Life of Planets
The Internet Hive Mind
JACK Quartet Everything That Rises (John Luther Adams)
Kuniko Drumming (Steve Reich)
Kukuruz Quartet Julius Eastman Piano Interpretations
Kendrick Lamar/Various Artists Black Panther: The Album
Kelly Moran Ultraviolet
Georgia Anne Muldrow Overload
Steve Reich/International Contemporary Ensemble/Colin Currie Group Pulse/Quartet
Esperanza Spalding 12 Little Spells
Kali Uchis Isolation
Kamasi Washington Heaven and Earth
Tierra Whack Whack World
Aretha Franklin The Atlantic Singles Collection 1967-1970
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Best of 2017
Alarm Will Sound with Meet the Composer Splitting Adams (Cantaloupe)
Sarah Cahill with Regina Myers and Samuel Adams Eighty Trips Around the Sun: Music by and for Terry Riley (Irritable Hedgehog)
Ars Nova Copenhagen First Drop (Cantaloupe)
Julius Eastman The Zürich Concert (New World)
ÌFÉ IIII+IIII (Discos Ifá)
Kelly Moran Bloodroot (Telegraph Harp)
Sampha Process (Young Turks)
Tyshawn Sorey Verisimilitude (Pi)
Moses Sumney Aromanticism (Jagjaguwar)
SZA Ctrl (Top Dawg/RCA)
Thundercat Drunk (Brainfeeder)
John Williams Close Encounters of the Third Kind · 40th Anniversary Remastered Edition (La-La Land)
Music by Linda Catlin Smith, Martin Arnold, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Chiyoko Szlavnics, Marc Sabat Canadian Composer Series (Another Timbre)
Various Artists Spiritual Jazz 7: Islam (Jazzman)
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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 2016
Childish Gambino “Awaken, My Love!” (Glassnote)
Vicky Chow A O R T A (New Amsterdam)
King We Are King (King Creative)
Laura Mvula The Dreaming Room (Sony · RCA)
Holly Roadfeldt The Preludes Project (Ravello)
Solange A Seat at the Table (Saint · Columbia)
Esperanza Spalding Emily’s D+Evolution (Concord)
reissues · remasters · restorations · box sets
Wally Badarou Back to Scales To-Night (Barclay · Expansion)
The Emotions Blessed: The Emotions Anthology 1969-1985 (BBR)
Philip Glass The Complete Sony Recordings (Sony)
Bernard Herrmann Twisted Nerve (Stylotone)
John Williams Jurassic Park · The Lost World: Jurassic Park (La-La Land)
Various Artists Doing It in Lagos: Boogie, Pop & Disco in 1980s Nigeria (Soundway)
Various Artists Star Trek: 50th Anniversary Collection (La-La Land)
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Linea Nigra, for string octet
Linea Nigra (2015) began as an orchestration of my piano piece Canon Chorale (2005). It is scored for string octet, in this case the same configuration as a double string quartet. Most of the structure and content of the earlier work are retained as a kind of continuo, to which newly devised material adds range and contrapuntal detail.
The general technique is a variation of first species counterpoint. A set of short melodies in each of the modes of C major are heard in two- to six-voice, note-on-note canons at the unison and octave, creating a sequence of block chords, or a chorale. The resulting harmonic progressions may have a cloud-like feel to them especially as melodic lengths and part density increase, and chord roots become ambiguous. Towards the end, faster melodic lines develop out of a recurring a triplet pattern.
The title of the piece reflects my own quest for my biological and cultural roots. Linea nigra (“black line”) thus references the vertical line that appears on a woman’s belly in some pregnancies, while it also suggests Black lineage and survival. It could also stand in the sense of a melodic line, printed or otherwise.
My great thanks go to Ashil Mistry, who suggested the instrumentation and generously edited the score, as well as directing the performance heard here.
Recorded July 3, 2016, London, UK
Scheme Ensemble
Ashil Mistry, conductorMusic and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2016
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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)
EL MAHBOOB 