5:4

Happy New Year everyone! In usual 5:4 fashion, i want to start the new year, in the wake of the festive season’s (over-)indulgences, with an exploration of some great music that you can obtain completely free, gratis and for nothing. Though it should be stressed, if you want to, you …

Without wasting any time, let’s plunge into the second half of 2025’s Best Albums of the Year, every one of them a staggering achievement of ingenuity and brilliance that defies any and all expectations. Individually, they’re vital and essential; together, they define the very best of the best of this …

So here we are again, the end of the year, looking back at the almighty heights scaled by the most intrepid few. Here’s the first half of 2025’s Best Albums of the Year, an absolute showcase of fearless invention and remarkable beauty that demands and deserves your full, undivided attention.

Two primary sensibilities characterise this remarkable album featuring six pieces by Patricia Alessandrini & Marco Fusi. The first is intimacy, conveyed in the close, careful, sympathetic way Alessandrini and Fusi approach and interact with one another’s sounds. The other is tactility, a pronounced sense of not merely touch but an …

There’s having your expectations met, there’s having them exceeded … and there’s this. When i first got to know Aya’s music, in 2021 with her debut album im hole (one of my best albums of that year), i was deeply impressed by the way her voice operated as something avant-vocal. …

There’s a deep, tragic irony in the title of Breton musician Emilie Quinquis’ latest album. Eor means ‘anchor’, suggesting not just water and depths, but security and immovability. Yet its eight tracks are a dark sequence continually articulating wistfulness, uncertainty and loss. Its initial sounds, in opening track ‘Inkanuko’ (desire) …

Körper; body – it’s kind of surprising that it took German composer Enno Poppe until 2021 to give that title to one of his compositions. In the course of his career, Poppe has established himself as the ensemble composer par excellence; a composer for whom the ensemble, the group, the …

Of the larger-scale performances at HCMF 2025, the most qualitatively challenged was that given by the London Sinfonietta, conducted by Geoffrey Paterson. Laurence Osborn‘s Mute just sounded like early ’90s Thomas Adès, pointlessly rehashed three decades later, also demonstrating how the Faberian sound is not so much alive and (for …

Most festivals go out of their way these days to jam-pack their weekends with all the best stuff, and that was certainly case at this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. There was so much to enjoy during the opening weekend it felt as if it lasted longer than just a …

i didn’t realise how much i’d missed listening to Chiyoko Szlavnics‘ music until i pressed play on Memory Spaces, the latest album of her music. It’s been far too long, and while my interest in music exploring alternative tunings has waned considerably as it’s become slowly and stupidly reconfigured into …

In addition to the solos and duos i discussed previously, there were various ensemble performances at this year’s Sacrum Profanum, though they were very far from being highlights, memorable for the wrong reasons. As far as Stephen O’Malley‘s You Origin was concerned, one already knew what to expect. However, to …

While the Sacrum Profanum festival’s name hints at its beginnings, mixing sacred and secular music of the 18th and 19th centuries, today’s iteration bears no resemblance. Notions of ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ – absurdly outdated and meaningless concepts both – are absent, and the entirety of the festival programme focuses on …

It’s cold and dark, which inevitably means it’s time to trudge to the north of England for another Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. As there are far fewer concerts than usual this year, i’ll just be going up for the opening weekend. Back on Monday; meanwhile, words about Sacrum Profanum are …

It was a little over two years ago that i was introduced to the orchestral triptych Core – Turn – Boost by Swiss composer Dieter Ammann, on an album of live recordings by the Basel Sinfonietta conducted by Baldur Brönnimann. Recorded in May 2023 to celebrate the composer’s 60th birthday, …

As an epilogue to my excursions in Estonia during the summer and autumn, i want to highlight two albums that are tangentially related to the events i attended. During the Tormis 95 extravaganza in August, i mentioned Olev Muska, an Australian-Estonian composer who among other things was presenting his new …

Though it has the semblance of being international, AFEKT is for the most part a German-oriented festival, in terms of both composers and performers. As usual, members of Ensemble Musikfabrik were in attendance – Marco Blaauw (trumpet), Christine Chapman (horn), Lucy Humphris (trumpet), Stephen Menotti (trombone) and Maxime Morel (tuba) …

Following a 2-year gap, i’m flying to Kraków this morning to experience this year’s Sacrum Profanum festival. Back next week.

Although this year’s AFEKT festival had a nominal theme, ‘Zwei Gefühle’ – from the eponymous work by Helmut Lachenmann – in practice it was a loose collection of thematic elements, primarily name-checking the 90th birthdays of Lachenmann and Arvo Pärt, and the 100th anniversaries of Berio and Boulez. Nonetheless, the …

“Everybody needs more Galina Ustvolskaya in their life.” That’s what i wrote last December, when discussing her Symphony No. 5 in my Advent Calendar, and it’s nice to think that the BIS record label read those words and decided to act on them. i very much doubt that’s the case, …

i’m heading back to Estonia first thing this morning, to attend the main portion of this year’s AFEKT, the country’s most aesthetically radical and outward-looking festival. This year there are celebrations to mark Luciano Berio’s 100th anniversary, as well as the 90th birthdays of Helmut Lachenmann and Arvo Pärt. The …