Classical Music 278 Items

Charlemagne Palestine's majestic 1976 work The Golden Mean, originally performed by Palestine on two pianos, is revisited here as The Goldennn Meeenn + Sheeenn, a new collaboration between Palestine and enigmatic musician Rrose.
March 2018: the Festival Variations in Nantes commissions Charlemagne Palestine to reinvent The Golden Mean for two pianists. Palestine chose Rrose to join him in this new rendition of the work. Together, they performed The Goldennn Meeenn + Sheeenn onstage at the main opera house in Nantes -- the sumptuous Théâtre Graslin – with extraordinary results.
The concept of the 'golden mean' goes back to the roots of mathematics, and ancient Greek philosophy. It is an important work in the Palestine mythos, embodying his total immersion in the power of the interval. "It's probably his most systematic work . . . a step-by-step journey through the intervals of the octave," says Rrose. "When we rehearsed it, we were noticing how each interval is like a universe of its own -- with its own history, emotions, and sonic qualities all mixed up together. Every time you move from one interval to the next, it feels like moving into another world.
I love the interval," Palestine told me in a recent interview. "I love when it plays with itself. That's what I learned from organ musics too. You can just do an interval, and if they're just slightly out of tune with each other, then they shimmer . . . they play themselves. And it sounds like somebody's playing lots of notes. In your ear, it's like an aural phenomenon . . . that's my whole concept. I make something that then does itself somehow. It continues by itself. So I don't have to always be there. And that makes my music a little less egocentric. So there's more space. Also for the listener — the ear plays with these things, and you're not always being given orders. Your ear isn't given orders all the time of what to listen for."
Beautifully recorded, with mastering by Rashad Becker of Dubplates and Mastering, The Golden Mean + Sheeenn feels expansive, radiant and hypnotic, opening new ears to its enduring mystery.
Rrose adds this note to listeners: "Do not focus your attention on the notes being played, but on the ocean of overtones swimming, suspended, overhead, brushing against one another, kissing one another, melting into one another.

Still in shrink, but opened, with hype sticker

Chris Korda is an internationally renowned multimedia artist, whose work spans thirty years and includes electronic music, digital and video art, performance and conceptual art, and culture jamming. Chris pioneered the use of complex polymeter in electronic dance music, and invented a unique Midi sequencer in order to explore polymeter composition techniques. Chris composes and performs music in a variety of genres, and has released many albums on labels such as Perlon, Mental Groove, and Gigolo Records. Chris also worked as a computer programmer for thirty-five years.

Her new album "Passion For Numbers" is one of the very few album in the world entirely composed in complex polymeter, meaning that each pieces of music uses several prime meters simultaneously. A unique way to compose music with a new generation of musical algorithmic, inside which Korda injects the DNA of neo classical, ambient and jazz music.

This refreshing album will please you whether you are into complex musical composition, experimental music or just seeking for a beautiful, emotional and accessible musical moment. This is a "In your hearts not the charts" album, as Irdial Discs once said.

Pleases read an extract of Chris Korda's letter about Passion For Numbers, included as insert in its entirety in this vinyl release:

This is an album of piano music, but I wrote it without a piano. Not having a piano turned out to be constructive, because I had to rely on my brain instead of my fingers, and particularly on my imagination and inner hearing. The album belongs to a category called phase music, and it’s also algorithmic, or more precisely rules-based generative music.

I don’t write music in the usual sense of the word “write.” I build kinetic sculptures, and the sculptures generate my music. My sculptures are virtual, meaning they’re invisible machines that exist only as data within my home-grown software. My process is related to the work of a relatively obscure early 20th century artist named Thomas Wilfred. Like me, Wilfred was an engineer-artist, and built machines that generated art from phase shift.

My music is in complex polymeter, meaning it’s not just in odd time, but in multiple odd time signatures, and not one odd time signature after another sequentially, but all of them running concurrently. Most music isn’t constructed this way, which is why I needed to develop custom software in order to compose my music. My software is called The Polymeter Midi Sequencer, and you can easily find it on the Internet. I also use music set theory, change-ringing and gray code, explanations of which can be found in Wikipedia.

Info coming soon.

Golden vinyl. Limited edition numbered.

The Layers are a collection of compilations by 7K! Records to support a range of contemporary classical music. Duet Layers pays tribute to the first edition of Piano Layers, String Layers, Ambient Layers and Wind Layers. In this new compilation, each track is made up of two musicians merging their musical expressions together. The result is a collaborative record between twelve of the most interesting artists from around the world, sharing their sonic landscapes. Featuring: Hania Rani, Colin Stetson, Niklas Paschburg, Bryan Senti, Simon Goff, Dobrawa Czocher to name a few.

The Discomfort Of Evening is the incredible and original soundtrack by prolific Belgian composer Michiel de Malsche to 2020 International Booker Prize winner The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld. Visceral and virtuosic, Rijneveld's novel follows Jas, a girl growing up in a devout Christian family that runs a Dutch dairy farm, whose brother dies in an accident after she wishes he would die instead of her rabbit. Lost in grief, her family falls apart as she becomes consumed by increasingly dangerous fantasies.

Michiel de Malsche has captured the atmosphere and spirit of Rijneveld's book perfectly, moving through moments of confrontation and introspection, sinking into spirals of despair, stasis and subtle hope and change. Brooding ambient basslines, driven by droning murmurs, are offset with melismatic electro-acoustic pieces that embody the novel's haunting and dissonant world, whilst also incorporating manipulated field recordings such as animal sounds and a church service, allowing for a full manifestation of Jas’s world in a completely new way.

De Malsche achieves this by rallying an unusual combination of acoustic instruments (16 in total) played by top-of-their-field musicians, creating a truly unique sound world and tonal palette, including an Ondes Martenot, a 7-stringed Chinese instrument called a guqin, a marimba, a string 6-tet, a toy piano and a bass flute.

De Malsche always confronts all emotional levels of his source material head-on, making his soundtrack into much more than just a fever dream. It is a precise description of, and accompaniment to, a devastatingly impactful book.

Michiel De Malsche is a Belgian composer, multi-instrumentalist and sound designer. He studied classical composition at the conservatories of Rotterdam and Ghent. His music has been performed all over the world and he has composed and produced dozens of soundtracks for contemporary dance, theatre, movies and documentaries.
Besides his work as a contemporary classical composer, he is active as a studio musician and producer in the world of electronic music.

Block Gifts is a collection of three works for organs composed by James Rushford between 2015 and 2018. Using harmonium, portative organ and electric organ, each piece is linked by Rushford’s idiosyncratic combination of strict intervallic systems in different tunings (Werckmeister, quarter-tone, equal temperament), and haptically-informed rhythmic and expressive freedom. Creaks, stutters and sweeping fingers on keys become instrumental sounds in their own right, creating a further logical layer in Rushford’s compositional world. An intimate, nocturnal, and slightly suffered dialogue between the instrument and the body building a shining and fragile monument to the ephemeral nature of the organ, one of the most intriguing and ancient families of musical instruments in history. Mixed by Joe Talia, mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, cut by Daniel Krieger at SST, Frankfurt am Main. Composed and recorded 2015-2018 at Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart), California Institute of the Arts (by Sam Dunscombe) and Chinatown Studios, Melbourne (by Joe Talia). Cover artwork and fold out poster by Graham Lambkin.

Since his debut with the "Darling Darling Darling"track, immediately spotted by the media as well as by electronic music lovers, Louis Warynski has continued to evolve a world that belongs to him alone, over the last ten years and eight albums.Like Lewis Caroll's universe, Chapelier Fou's music is multiple, simple and complex, serious and light, classic and modern. Louis Warynski's work is woven on a classical basis, but it is constantly disrupted by subtle electronic arrangements and rhythms, thus taking the tracks outside of all convention.We find in Chapelier Fou the facetiousness of French composers such as Erik Satie, François de Roubaix or Robert Cohen Solal, not hesitating to blend pop and concrete music, but also this formidable capacity to make serious what is not serious, and vice versa of course. His music, very much at home on screen as well as on stage, has everything that makes up the trait of genius composers: accessible in appearance and adaptable in all forms.This is how Chapelier Fou has performed on stage as a soloist, juggling between violin, guitar, keyboards and pedals, in trio, quartet and even in orchestral formation with the Orchestre National of Metz. Often described as "electronic chamber music", it was expected that one day Chapelier Fou would offer us a version of his music without a single electronic or electrified part. It is now done with this Ensemb7e who performed on the stage of L'Arsenal de Metz, broadcasted by Arte Concert. Chapelier Fou Ensemb7e has received direct support from a wide audience, but also from venues programmers where the septet has been performing since June 2021. Ensemb7e stands for a mainly wooden septet: violin, viola, cello, piano, clarinet and drums accompany the multi-instrumentalist composer. It's hard to resist such musical enthusiasm! The magic happens immediately because the re-reading of these little jewels in pop format gives a touching and fulfilling dimension to Chapelier Fou's work: even more dreamy versions, sometimes more mis...

The Duo met on a rainy day in Tilburg (nl) while working for a dance project — they came down from very different roads. Fhunyue, a stage director–performer–musician chameleon, works alone or collaborate with Annalena Fröhlich (Robinrobin, Just Another Woman In Space), Thom Luz, Unplush, Peeping Tom, Dorit Chrysler, Ko Murobushi, Damien Jalet, The Scottish Dance Theatre, Bern Ballett, for a most colourful variety of venues in Europe. She is a member of the music association Bongo Joe (Switzerland). Sven, an established musician living between Hamburg and Nairobi, who released several records on Honest Jons and Bureau B and collaborated with several artists like Shabaka Hutchings, Ogoya Nengo, Marc Ribot, John McEntire, Sofia Jernberg, Nils Frahm, Hauschka, F.S. Blumm and Stefan Schneider.

Their encounter quickly revealed that both their musical sensitivity and their instruments (Marimbas, Drums, Percussions, Electronics, Theremin, Buchla Synthesizer, Piano) matched stunningly, and that they had to play together. After a short while of rocky life adventures and theatre projects in which they collaborated, their off rehearsal sessions would become a lively necessity. The wish to give birth to a project entirely their own, grew so strong that they locked themselves in Sven’s studio at Jaffestrasse in Hamburg, and started working on the debut of their duet. They are happy to present and share with you their labour of love, in hope that it will be good to your heart.

Another first-time-on-vinyl release from Koko, Ballads For Bass Clarinet (previously a Japan-only CD) comprises a couple of waltzes, a blues, a Monk-ish suite-like piece, a free-ish drums and clarinet interlude, and finally an elegy to civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer.

David Murray leads on bass clarinet, managing to go both deep and soaringly high; it sometimes sounds like two different instruments are being played. Backed by John Hicks (piano), Ray Drummond (bass) and Idris Muhammad (drums), Murray’s quartet is tight and the recording superb, with a warm and intimate sound.

Highly recommended.

Via tape loops and synth motifs sent from LA to NY, sound artist Christopher Royal King has teamed with violinist and composer Christopher Tignor toward richly timbral, emotionally gripping works of spontaneity that unfurl immense details with each replay while marrying west coast outboard-ambient to studied east coast modern classical. The resulting debut album, A Wave From A Shore, exhibits both artists' sonic identifiers falling in and out of cooperation before binding into a new entity distinct from either's solitary palettes. A visual artist whose work includes album covers for Thrice and Deftones in addition to video bumps for Adult Swim, Christopher Royal King spent his teenage years cutting his teeth on heavy metal and punk before gravitating, quickly and perhaps unexpectedly, toward experimental composers like Philip Glass and Terry Riley. This unlikely seesaw of influences led directly to King forming the post-rock pillar This Will Destroy You with fellow San Antonio native Jeremy Galindo. Similar to his former band's output, King's solo meanderings impart a mood of buoyancy and contemplation while hinting at darker, more shadowy hues beneath the glimmer, making his music stand apart from the glut of New Age droners and modular-synth influencers. Where the genre at large is sometimes guilty of being the spiritual equivalent of a topical balm, King's aesthetic is more like a rigorous therapy session that's as healing as it is confronting. Christopher Tignor first crossed paths with King in the mid 2000s, lending string arrangements to This Will Destroy You releases, and sometimes touring as a live member of the group. Over the years, Tignor has mounted an impressive discography under his own name and with his groups Slow Six, and Wires Under Tension, all while completing Princeton's PhD program for music composition, and NYU's Masters of computer science program. He put the full power of his dual studies to use, arriving at the illusionist-like meld of sound design and physical performance that his current-day solo efforts portray. In his own words "I banned backing tracks, click tracks, and even live looping - anything that would enforce a strict grid. All sounds originate from me kicking a drum, playing the violin, or various natural percussion sources. I built software that lets me do all this. This offers an unprecedented amount of control over this music's elastic sense of time." King's own music follows parallel rivulets of happenstance, but in desktop form, his array of analog gadgets in perpetual dialogue with one another as he omnipotently guides and documents the chatter. Tignor's lucid string work frames King's impressionism, sharpening the focus while being softened by the textural overgrowth. Their debut A Wave From A Shore does its part to rescue ambient music from its purely anesthetic functionality, offering instead a profound, often ravaging emotional experience for listeners who wish to be moved and not just lulled.

Home is a powerful concept with an abstract definition. This solo album takes those subjective ideas and unifies them under one roof. Evolving from Jerve’s #dailypiano posts in 2019, ‘The Soundtrack of My Home’ relays thoughts and improvisations that trace his journey from childhood home to adult and now, father. Nurturing a mood or feeling, each song begets a sonorous story of someone close to him, expressed through the language of piano playing.

Jerve makes use of his hands as a human step sequencer, often programming two or more motifs of varying lengths in a polymetric fashion. These melodic patterns and arpeggios evolve at varying rates but grow around clear progressions with standard 8-bar forms.

The first track - ‘Kjetil’ enters with an earnest, gentle and endearing character - like a young river near its source. As with such a river, it will grow to varied sizes throughout the album but must begin as a humble expression from the source. The following titles sketch his interpretations of the people that have made up his home.

There is a theme across the album that unites the songs, so much so that differentiating tracks can at times be difficult. Though, Jerve punctuates this overarching mood with a few distinct structures, as found in tracks ‘Karoline’ (wife), ‘Espen’ (brother) and ‘Sven’ (father). ‘Turid’ (daughter) and ‘Jon Eirik’ (brother) seem less directive and welcome more intrigue, reminiscent of a curious child wandering through the dappled light of a forest.

‘Iben’ (daughter) and ‘Eivor’ (daughter) have a hypnotic, three-pointed melodic structure that leaves the listener suspended; transfixed - while ‘Sussi’ (cat) carries unique momentum and suitably feline autonomy. ‘Mette’ (mother) has a mood of ascending, like that of a child's upward gaze at their maternal carer. Utterly nuanced in structure, Jerve leaves ample space for subjective interpretation and allows the listener to weave their own life into the tones.

As expected from the founder of Dugnad rec - this album signifies a deeply personal sentiment. Sometimes we are forced to confront the music and other times, we are left to wonder. Here, we find a balance and unity that allows little thoughts and worries to drift away, bringing us warmly to rest in the present. The LP edition's bonus track features producer/performer extraordinaire Stian Balducci, drawing a line to the next chapter of piano-based music from Dugnad rec: Tokyo Tapes: Piano Recycle.

Still shrink wrapped but opened.

Limited Edition.
Record with just a few paper scuffs.

Sealed copy.
Cover corners slightly dented.