Continuing with Scandinavian new releases, a new disc from Bis featuring four works by Anders Hillborg is a real treat. It’s a generalisation, of course, but the focus of Hillborg’s music tends to be on the surface, and this understandably polarises listeners. Usually, the successes of this approach come out …
CD/Digital releases
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CD/Digital releases
A telling contemporary engagement with archetypes: Bent Sørensen – Snowbells
by 5:4What leaps out immediately on Snowbells, a new collection of choral works by Bent Sørensen, and constantly throughout, is the composer’s deep, thoughtful engagement with intense emotion, particularly the themes of life, love and death. Words, and the layers of connotation and meaning encapsulated within them, are clearly not just …
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CD/Digital releases
New releases: Matthias Kaul, Ensemble Musikfabrik – works by Cage, Hosokawa, Harvey, Poppe, Saariaho & Nunes
by 5:4Three recent releases on Wergo have stayed true to the German label’s tendency to go above and beyond one’s expectations. It’s hard to say which is more remarkable, John Cage or percussionist Matthias Kaul, on Cage After Cage, an album featuring renditions of six of the composer’s works for percussion, …
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The most recent pair of new releases from the always excellent Spanish label Neu Records are particularly interesting, both on their own terms as well as in the marked way they contrast with each other in compositional outlook and intent. Neu has particularly championed the music of Bernat Vivancos; 2011 brought …
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With the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival poised to kick off tomorrow, i’m focusing this new releases roundup on Jürg Frey, composer-in-residence at HCMF 2015, and composers associated with the Wandelweiser—would ‘group’ be the right word? ‘collective’? ‘concept’? ‘conceit’? Just the other day, an esteemed colleague described Wandelweiser to me as …
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CD/Digital releases
New releases: Gottfried Huppertz, Elliott Sharp, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Coppice
by 5:4i want to flag up a few more new releases that have recently been tickling my jukeboxical fancy. To begin with, music that’s not remotely contemporary, but which in its own way marks an important contribution to the development of a particular musical strand that began early in the 20th …
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CD/Digital releasesSoftware
Indeterminate, interactive son et lumière: Kenneth Kirschner & Joshue Ott’s Variant
by 5:4Interesting things are afoot for those with a penchant for the indeterminate. Composer Kenneth Kirschner has teamed up with digital visual artist Joshue Ott to create a trio of audiovisual apps, under the umbrella title Variant, that enable one to explore in different ways indeterminate music and visuals in a …
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CD/Digital releases
New releases: Gilles Gobeil, Åke Parmerud, Morton Subotnick, Tim Wright, Volker Hennes, John Wall/Alex Rodgers, Veli-Matti Puumala, Marko Ciciliani
by 5:4i’ve been kind of drowning in fascinating new releases lately, so i’m going to try and give something of a whistle-stop tour through some of the best. Beginning with a couple from the always wonderful Empreintes DIGITALes label. Canadian composer Gilles Gobeil is represented by Les lointains, featuring six substantial …
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CD/Digital releases
New releases: Hans Werner Henze, Coppice, Galina Ustvolskaya, Gabriel Ledoux, Susanna Gartmayer, Alva Noto, Robert Normandeau, Erik Nyström
by 5:4Not many new releases have made much of an impact on me during the last month. Among the few that have, though, is a new box set from Wergo bringing together all ten of Hans Werner Henze‘s symphonies, performed by the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Marek Janowski. Henze’s symphonies were an …
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CD/Digital releases
New releases: Simon Steen-Andersen, Monty Adkins & Stephen Harvey, Jennifer Walshe
by 5:4My round-up of the most interesting new releases this time features three objects: a film, a box and a book, each desirable for very different reasons. The film, available from Dacapo Records, is a much-to-be-celebrated DVD release of Simon Steen-Andersen‘s bewilderingly marvellous work Black Box Music. The memory of my …
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CD/Digital releases
New releases: Mark Andre, John Wall & Alex Rodgers, Phil Minton & Simon H. Fell, Kreng
by 5:4If there’s one thing that many of the more interesting new releases i’ve heard have in common, it’s doing new and unusual things with conventional sounds, objects and forms. To this end, the most impressive disc of orchestral music I’ve encountered recently is Mark Andre‘s … auf … (Wergo). There’s actually …
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CD/Digital releases
New releases: Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Markus Reuter, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Arditti Quartet, Eric Craven, Audiobulb, Zbigniew Karkowski, Nordvargr, Stockhausen
by 5:4It’s a while since i’ve had a chance to survey new releases, so there’s quite a few that are overdue being highlighted. Some of them appeared on my recent Best Albums of the Year list, such as Anna Thorvaldsdottir‘s Aerial, out on Deutsche Grammophon. As i’ve mentioned in my previous articles …
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CD/Digital releases
New releases: Messiaen, Paul Dolden, Richard Uttley, iamamiwhoami, Davíð Brynjar Franzson, Shivers
by 5:4Among the crop of more interesting recent releases is a reissue of Messiaen‘s complete organ works that is easily the most affordable currently available. Treasure Island Music has brought together the famous recordings made by Jennifer Bate in the late 1970s/early 1980s—originally issued by Unicorn-Kanchana/Regis—in a 6-CD slimline box set …
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The majority of new releases to have come my way recently have featured music for ensemble and/or orchestral forces, each disc of which is usually devoted to the work of a single composer. The opportunity to scrutinise an individual’s work in great depth at times turns out to be something …
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Turning to electronic music, i want to highlight several recent releases from the Entr’acte label. Founded in 1999 in London but today based in Antwerp, Entr’acte’s output has always made an impression long before any of the music has been heard. Their approach, not unique but certainly unusual among labels …
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The 5:4 doormat has been inundated with a stream of new releases falling onto it through the last few weeks, many of which are outstanding and deserve fuller treatment in due course—but to at least get the ball rolling, here’s an overview of some of the best, starting with chamber …
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CD/Digital releases
New releases: Fuzzy, Craig Leon, Gareth Davis & Machinefabriek, Tim Hodgkinson
by 5:4Have you heard of Fuzzy? No, i hadn’t either – so i was pleased to explore a new compilation of music by the enigmatically-monikered Danish composer (otherwise known as Jens Vilhelm Pedersen), recently released by DaCapo. Chimes of Memory presents five works, most of them pretty hefty and which together …
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Among the swathe of new releases currently jostling around the 5:4 jukebox, i want to start by flagging up two interesting recent releases, both serendipitous discoveries from the panning-for-gold approach to listening that is my modus operandi these days. First is Duologue, a five-piece from London whose latest EP, Memex, …
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Having recently examined the more interesting soloistic and orchestral new releases, it’s time to give an overview of the best of the rest, music that doesn’t fit quite so easily into nice categories. First, released today on the Innova label, is Sunken Cathedral, the new album from Korean-American composer and …
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Alongside the collection of soloistic new releases i recently reviewed, several impressive new CDs of orchestral and ensemble music have emerged lately. One of the most surprising, from an aesthetic perspective, is the latest disc of Mark-Anthony Turnage‘s music released by LSO Live. The surprise is encapsulated in the titles …