I am woefully behind in heppin' you-all to the latest and greatest releases awaiting your cold cash. I have so many samples of new releases that I'm splitting them into the avant-classical/experimental/electronic/weird-instruments genres (today's batch) and the novelty/outsider/wacko pop/rock end of things (next post). From the sublime to the ridiculous.
Our universities are still producing music majors who move into composing, teaching, conducting, etc. and labels like Innova and Ravello are still promoting them. I have no academic music background, but this collection of the latest works from composers far beyond the classical mainstream sounds great to me. Not exactly chilled/ambient, but, as it's mostly instrumental and often atmospheric and emotional, great stuff for waking to in the morning, or for evening's contemplation with a cocktail. Tho we start off with a bit of a bang:
1. David Kechley "Design And Construction - III. Cross Cuts": Percussion! The aptly-named "Colliding Objects" album features not only pitched percussives, but just about anything else that can be struck with a stick. The title track "requires marimba, cymbals, large drums, tam tam, pitched gongs, crotales, woodblocks and exotic bells." The piece featured here utilizes circular saw blades, and wooden planks cut to different lengths.2. Andrew Violette's "Sonatas For Cello and Clarinet" is as moody as it's cover - tracks with names like "Mournful Bells" offer truth in advertising. The piece also boasts such non-standard classical music oddities as a cha-cha, but what really grabbed me was the dreamy piano that came in at 1:30 of "Grazioso leggiero." It's what I imagine Alice's trip to Wonderland must have sounded like.
3. McCormick Percussion Group "With Intensity": Awright, more percussion! The title piece of the McCormick's new album, "Concerti for Piano with Percussion Orchestra" is 15 minutes of variations on an oddly sentimental, but gorgeous melody. It's as old-fashioned as you can get for a piece for piano and nine percussionists. Part one is included here, but all three movements are, well, sublime.4. Jeffrey Weisner's album "Neomonology" is bass-ically just upright acoustic bass.
"The compositional process for Armando Bayolo’s 'Mix Tape' began with Weisner sending a mix of his favorite tunes to Bayolo, who then reworked them with pop and rock favorites of his own." I can't tell what the original sources are (maybe they were changed due to copyright issues?) but I dig this. It could have been the bass part to something out of Glass' "Einstein On the Beach." Elsewhere on the album, Weisner delves into micro-tonal territory.
5, 7. We now move completely out of any recognizable musical traditions with two short excerpts from Ulrich Mertin & Erdem Helvacioglu's "Planet X." Were this the '70s, the concept album about the arrival of a mysterious planet of hostile aliens would have been told with corny lyrics and a histrionic singer. Fortunately, today we get pure abstract electronica, along with something called a GuitarViol.
6. The title track of Yvonne Troxler's "Brouhaha" album, features violin, cello, and ball bearings being rolled around in three glass bowls. Cool! Elsewhere, Troxler and the 11-person Glass Farm Ensemble work their strings, horns, electric guitar and, again, plenty percussion into a variety of pleasingly dissonant (possible micro-tonal) shapes, inspired by the noise of New York City, and, on another track, meteorites. The meteorite piece is a good 'un, sounding like it's performed entirely on pitched plastic cups. Lots of variety and invention - one of my fave albums of this bunch.7. Barry Schrader's "The Barnum Museum" is, like "Planet X," an electronic concept album, and this concept is so rad that the booklet that comes with the CD is at least as interesting as the music - a phantasmagorical visit to PT Barnum's 1800s "museum," where every room in the enormous mysterious building contains another enigma, or seemingly real-life myth, from mermaids to flying carpets, to things best left unexperienced. Behold! The Chinese Kaleidoscope.8. Harry Partch's "Bitter Music" is one of my Albums Of The Year - a 3-disk collection of the legendary gay/ homeless/ hobo/ micro-tonal musical instrument inventor/ writer/ outsider /genius (phew!) It's mostly spoken-word, but hey, it's the journals of a Depression-era hobo "riding the rails" - illegally hopping on freight trains criss-crossing the country in search of work, all the while virtually re-inventing music. Reading from his journals is KPFK radio presenter, and founder of the Micro-Fest annual music festival John Schneider, who also plays some mean guitar, custom-made to Partch's bizarre specifics. This is one of the more musical, as opposed to text-heavy tracks: Just in time for winter, it's "December, 1935 - Night. Four black walls." M4M Sampler: From The Sublime...
I have just done your holiday shopping for you. You're welcome. Coming soon: 'M4M Sampler: ...To The Ridiculous'
Here's a collection of new (or new-ish) pieces of sonic loveliness excerpted from albums now out for you to spend money on, most of it fairly low-key abstract ambient/hypno/drone instrumentals by composers of...what? "Avant garde"? That implies that they are at the forefront and everyone will follow them. Maybe that will happen. Or maybe they're off in their own little universe, too singular and odd to ever influence anyone. "New Music"? Well, that one's just plain silly. Is it still 'new' in a year, or ten, or fifty? Then what do you call it? "Alternative classical"? I like this one, since most of these folks came out of the musical academy. But when you're composing for a cymbal, or electronics, or microtonal guitars, or junk percussion (as all the folks featured today do) it hardly sounds very 'classical.' We'll probably never settle this one, so let's just listen to some beautiful music, shall we?
Music For An Avant-Garde Cruise Ship
(Due to circumstances beyond my control, I can't use mediafire now. After clicking the above link, scroll down for a choice of downloading options. You may have to wait a few secs. We apologize for the inconvenience.)
1-2. Eleanor Hovda: "Centerflow/Trail II," and "Coastal Traces Tidepools 2." This 4-disk set (sold for the price of a 2-disker) is a revelation. The late Ms. Hovda wrote music that puzzled me at first - it's sometimes glacially paced, with long silences. The music doesn't seem "composed' as much as something that just naturally drifts along. I kept expecting ambient, drone, minimalism or chamber music - it is all and none of those. The first piece is for bowed cymbals, the second finds Hovda playing "piano innards." Not included here because it's 30 minutes long is an improvised piece played inside an enormous empty underground town water tank. My most listened-to album of the year so far, even at 4 disks. .
3. Philip Blackburn: "Ghostly Psalms: Scratch I Ching" - Blackburn is the man behind Innova Records, from whence many of these tracks come. Like Hovda, he's an American Midwesterner (yah, hey dere!), which he salutes on "Duluth Harbor Serenade," scored for actual Minnesota harbor boats, and landlubbers, recorded in the field. Or rather, on the shore of the harbor. That's a pretty neat trick, but the centerpiece of the album is "Ghostly Psalms," inspired by old ruined monasteries, and scored for all manner of unusual soundmakers, including, on this track, something called the 'human rhythmicon." .
4. Oscar Bettison: "Junk" - Wake up! Amidst all these haunted atmospherics, here's a rocker. I just saw this guy at Disney Hall, for the premier of a new piece of his that uses junk "found" percussion instruments, performed by the LA Philharmonic New Music group. Hasn't been recorded yet, but here's one from a few years ago by this Brit (now in the US) that also skillfully combines things like coffee cups, metal bars and wrenches with traditional instruments. Kinda long, so you may wanna skip to last third or so if you're pressed for time - it builds up to a fairly explosive finale..
5. Andy Akiho: "Karakurenai (Crimson)" - This debut by a Japanese-American writing for Caribbean steel drum touches on jazz, classical, and avant-garde - everything but calypso. Effortlessly enjoyable. I guess it's just not possible to make "difficult music" on happy, sunny steel drums. If any experimental music could get play on cruise ships, this would be it. Album: "No One to Know One"
6. Christopher Campbell: "Sleepless Nights" - Like Eleanor Hovda's music, this album unpredictably wanders around with no particular direction. Unlike Hovda, Campbell's debut doesn't feature long drones and silences, but a kaleidescope of colorful sounds, including, on one of the 'Interludes,' a minute-and-a-half field recording of birds. This is the most 'song-y' track, a thoroughly eccentric mix of fake old-timey gospel, accordion waltzes, and abstract sounds. Album: "Sound the All-Clear" 
.7. Neil Haverstick: "The Spider" - Sometimes I think the old 7 tone "do re mi" Western scale is exhausted and music really needs to get into microtonal scales. However, when I listen to contemporary microtonal music, I realize that the composers are not doing much to make it very accessible, hence keeping it in the tiny experimental music ghetto. (Sure, I like it, but I would, wouldn't I?) But some of guitarist Haverstick's stuff is so cool I don't see how anyone could find it too objectionable - I mean, this piece is inspired by old sci-fi movies, and who can't get behind that?
8. Id Loom: "Sublation" - Mysterious ambient project apparently years in the making and only now coming to light. This track starts off with dense, rolling clouds of sound that part to reveal almost Gregorian-like singers. Strange and wonderul. From the free download album "To: Atlantis."
9. David Lang / Sentieri Selvaggi: "Sweet Air (excerpt)"- Lang's from acclaimed New York radicals Bang On A Can; Sentieri Selvaggi are the Italian group performing this lovely bit of minimalism for flute, clarinet, piano, violin and cello. Sweet, indeed. Album: "Child."
We first wrote about Paul "Ubertar" Rubenstein in 2009 when he was leading microtonal guitar-building workshops for New York children. They would then jam on these groovy home-made instruments, writing original songs to most charming effect.
His new album is solo - no kids - but it serves to demonstrate the man's compositional originality. Microtonal doesn't mean "out of tune," not if it's done right. In this instance, as with the Kraig Grady records we featured earlier, avoiding the usual Western do-re-mi scale doesn't me
an ear-wrenching atonality, but a gentle Zen-like Asian feel. Percussives plink and plonk, chime-like keyboards tinkle, and sometimes an electric guitar-like object (perhaps the "alumitar," pictured right) shreds over it all. Track 5 has some fantastic harmonic interplay, and Track 6 should be a hit, sporting the most irresistible melody in 5/4 time since the heyday of Dave Brubeck. Tasty, tasteful, and tuneful.
The new album "Solo Trios" is now available from Spectropol Records (or listen/buy from the Bandcamp page), but His Ubertarness has given us permission to post the entire album... at 128 kbps. That's right: if you want it in hi-fi, you gotta buy it. As well you should - the NY school system has made the questionable decision to cut his music classes. So the man is available to do scores, soundtracks, whatever you need. Maybe even parties, weddings and bar mitzvahs, tho those would be some pretty weird bar mitzvahs. What would Aunt Myrna think?! Anyway. Thanks muchly to Mr. Rubenstein.
Paul Rubenstein "Solo Trios"
"The pencilina is an electric board zither played primarily by striking the strings with sticks; also by plucking and bowing." And musical instrument inventor/singer-songwriter Bradford Reed is, so far as I know, the world's only performer on this nifty instrument. It's a credit to his songwriting that I didn't know anything about this instrument when I first heard his music - I just liked the song.
Of this 1996 album, the Brooklynite writes, "A strictly live pencilina album. For better or worse I used to have a very purist approach to recording- It must be live. A 50/50 split of instrumental and vocal tunes." Yup, no other instruments - just the one-man-band doing his eccentric thing. Songs range from slightly dissonant, possibly micro-tonal, plinkety-plunking, to actual catchy tunes. The slightly rough, unaffected singing makes Reed appear to be some sort of indie-rock Harry Partch.
Bradford Reed - "Live! At Home"
This album's going out of print, but he's got more for sale on his site. I recommend "Solo Live Songs" if, for no other reason, the excellent "She's A Rocket." And I can't believe I'm writing about someone from Brooklyn. I'm so trendy! Please forgive.
Music For Maniacs proudly co-present with the North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island a second spellbinding, uniquely exotic album from microtonal composer Kraig Grady.
"The Stolen Star
s: An Anaphorian Dance Drama" is an altogether different beast from the "Music From The Island of Anaphoria" album we presented here a couple of weeks back. "Music From The Island" was a variety show, every track a new direction. But "The Stolen Stars," tho it's divided into different tracks, is all of a piece. The music, designed to accompany a puppet shadow play dramatizing ancient Anaphorian myths, begins with "The Bees Awaken" - the thick string drones do indeed resemble buzzing insects. Gradually these give way to vibraphone-like metallophones until finally the strings fades out and gently chiming gamelan-like percussion melodies take over. The microtonal scales (no 'do-re-mi' here, folks) performed by a crew ten people strong create shimmering resonances that trick the ear into hearing notes not played. I took pics of the liner notes (included in the zip file) that describe the myth.
Kraig Grady "The Stolen Stars: An Anaphorian Dance Drama"
Grady's latest album "Beyond The Windows Perhaps Among The Podcorn" is an original piece not utilizing any of the musics of the mysterious island of Anaphoria, but it certainly is inspired by them. The 6-person group, now including sax, cello, trumpet, bassoon, and the wordless vocals of popular L.A. singer Mia Doi Todd is even more drone-laden, like Eno's "Music For Airports" minus any interruptions, stretched out to induce a remarkably hypnotic state - a veritable audio yoga class. I'm not posting it, tho - it's one of the few Grady releases still in print, so buy it HERE.
But - hey, cheapskates! - some new free Grady action is now available. Whirlpool, the duo of Grady and Chris Abrahams (of The Necks), recently performed an outstanding radio concert for micro-tuned harmonium and vibes that you can listen to if you scroll down HERE to Feb. 12, 2011. It's another lengthy piece, but I was never less than completely captivated by it.
Anaphoria is a mysterious, obscure island that Los Angeles microtonal composer Kraig Grady has been exploring for years. His addictive 1994 album "Music From The Island of Anaphoria" is richly exotic, but it's not exotica. No Martin Denny-type Polynesian pop here. Tho the music is sometimes reminiscent of Indonesian/gamelon music, the island's 73 different ethnic groups ensure that no one style predominates. It all sounds like nothing I've heard before. Why so much of this wonderful stuff is out-of-print and not as famous as Radiohead is something I'll never understand.Pump organs, chants, hammered dulcimer, all manner of clanging, chiming, and thumping percussion are heard here, as well as the strange sounds of native Anaphorian instruments unknown to the uninitiated. Shadow plays are sometimes performed along with the music at Grady's concerts. Hypnotic drones and atmospheric sounds (acoustic? electronic? both?) suggest esoteric rituals and ancient ceremonies. If Harry Partch wrote the music for Disneyland's "Enchanted Tiki Room," it might sound like this.
Also on hand here is L.A. experimental music legend Brad Laner, a guy I first knew of from his notorious noise band Debt of Nature - I saw 'em get booed opening for Wall of Voodoo way back when. He has since gone on to play with Savage Republic, Medicine, Brian Eno, Yoko Ono, and many others.
Kraig Grady "Music From The Island of Anaphoria" [
UPDATE 2-4-11: Back on line! Music For Maniacs and the North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island proudly co-present this album.] 01 Ecstasy of Exiles
02 Wedding Song (with Petra Haden)
03 Duet With Fogbound Oars
04 Ceremony At Airports Edge05 Ritual Offering
06 A Sacred Feast
07 Banaphshu Remembers her Father the Clock Maker08 Shadow Play - The Birds Rout The Demon Of Swords
09 A Farewell Ring
More Kraig Grady and the music of Anaphoria to come in future posts...
5, 7. We now move completely out of any recognizable musical traditions with two short excerpts from Ulrich Mertin & Erdem Helvacioglu's "Planet X." Were this the '70s, the concept album about the arrival of a mysterious planet of hostile aliens would have been told with corny lyrics and a histrionic singer. Fortunately, today we get pure abstract electronica, along with something called a GuitarViol.
