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Lent Series

  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Christopher McFall – Late Night Fate Directory

    by 5:4 April 19, 2025 • 17:29
    April 19, 2025 • 17:29

    The aim of this year’s 5:4 Lent Series has been twofold: first, to celebrate the work of US composer and sound artist Christopher McFall, and second, in collaboration with McFall, to re-release his work after many, many years of languishing completely unavailable. In the early stages of planning this series, …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Christopher McFall – Disengaged Songs for Disenchanted Lovers

    by 5:4 April 14, 2025 • 10:26
    April 14, 2025 • 10:26

    Familiarity can go a long way to diminish the effects of ambiguity. By now, 40 days into this Lent Series, we’re accustomed to the fact that immersing oneself within Christopher McFall‘s work is to enter a dark world of shapes moving in shadows, where sounds hint, suggest and allude, but …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Christopher McFall – Epilog (Recombinant)

    by 5:4 April 10, 2025 • 10:06
    April 10, 2025 • 10:06

    After the unexpected tangibility of An Eris 23, explored last time, Christopher McFall‘s 2012 album Epilog (Recombinant) isn’t just a return to his more familiar umbral soundworld, but to a degree that is way more than usually abstract. It takes as its starting point the materials he used when creating …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Christopher McFall – An Eris 23

    by 5:4 April 4, 2025 • 08:12
    April 4, 2025 • 08:12

    When exploring This Heat Holds Snow, i mentioned how Christopher McFall’s music features passages i call ‘in between’, states where things are more than usually elusive and / or blurred. The conclusion of that album took the three discrete elements in McFall’s work – pitch, rhythm and noise – and …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Christopher McFall – The Body As I Left It

    by 5:4 March 30, 2025 • 09:42
    March 30, 2025 • 09:42

    i often find myself thinking of the word ‘concrete’ when listening to Christopher McFall’s music. It’s because of the way that word’s meanings have a contradictory presence: many of the sounds McFall uses feel solid, firm; yet the soundworlds he creates tend toward vague, allusive and abstract environments. Concrete, yet …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Christopher McFall – This Heat Holds Snow

    by 5:4 March 25, 2025 • 10:32
    March 25, 2025 • 10:32

    One of the defining features of Christopher McFall‘s sound art is the ambiguity with which his source materials are handled. There’s at most a liminality to it – enough clarity (or ostensible clarity) to suggest something tangible – yet more often we’re left to fend for ourselves in worlds of …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Christopher McFall – The City of Almost

    by 5:4 March 20, 2025 • 09:43
    March 20, 2025 • 09:43

    i’ve been looking forward to this one. The City of Almost was the first of Christopher McFall‘s albums that i heard. i can’t remember what led me to it, but somehow in 2008 this CD, wrapped in a protective case of thick transparent paper, arrived at my door, and my …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Christopher McFall – Sensuality May Be Found At The Mouth Of A Snake

    by 5:4 March 15, 2025 • 09:57
    March 15, 2025 • 09:57

    i wrote previously about Christopher McFall‘s tendency to construct his work via smooth fades and transitions, rather than abrupt changes. That’s overwhelmingly the case, perhaps more than anywhere else, in his 2008 album Sensuality May Be Found At The Mouth Of A Snake. Though released as one 31-minute track, the …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Christopher McFall – Four Feels for Fire

    by 5:4 March 10, 2025 • 09:58
    March 10, 2025 • 09:58

    Four Feels For Fire was Christopher McFall‘s first physical release, put out on CD by renowned Belgian label Entr’acte in 2007. At 50 minutes’ duration, it was also his longest work so far, structured in five sections, the first four titled after the points of the compass, with a closing …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Christopher McFall – A Little Rouge

    by 5:4 March 5, 2025 • 08:48
    March 5, 2025 • 08:48

    20 years ago, US sound artist Christopher McFall quietly emerged via a Spanish netlabel with his first release, A Starved-Strafe Lancing Machine, an album i wrote about in 2022. Throughout his career, McFall’s output has deeply and consistently impressed me, and his releases have featured in many of my Best …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Allan Pettersson – Complete Edition: Final works, 1979-80

    by 5:4 March 30, 2024 • 06:00
    March 30, 2024 • 06:00

    Symphony No. 16 (1979) Allan Pettersson’s final completed work shares some similarities to Violin Concerto No. 2, inasmuch as it blurs the distinction between symphony and concerto. Pettersson went as far as to describe the concerto as “a symphony for violin and orchestra”, and it’s tempting to regard Symphony No. …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Allan Pettersson – Complete Edition: Symphonies Nos. 14-15, 1978

    by 5:4 March 26, 2024 • 06:00
    March 26, 2024 • 06:00

    Somewhat incredibly, for a man crippled by rheumatoid arthritis and essentially confined to his apartment (four floors above ground level without an elevator), Allan Pettersson managed to begin and complete his next two symphonies within a single year.

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Allan Pettersson – Complete Edition: Symphony No. 13, Violin Concerto No. 2, 1976-77

    by 5:4 March 22, 2024 • 06:00
    March 22, 2024 • 06:00

    Symphony No. 13 (1976) In the first part of this Lent Series, i remarked on the sorry fact that most of the admittedly sparse commentary on Pettersson’s music has invariably adopted the stance that it is all bleak, tragic and full of despair. Several of the preceding works i’ve explored …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Allan Pettersson – Complete Edition: Symphony No. 12, Vox Humana, 1973-74

    by 5:4 March 18, 2024 • 06:00
    March 18, 2024 • 06:00

    Symphony No. 12 “De döda på torget” (1973-1974) When Allan Pettersson began work on his Twelfth Symphony, it had been nearly 30 years since he had set text to music (in the 24 Barfotasånger, completed in 1945). He turned to the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, selecting nine poems that would …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Allan Pettersson – Complete Edition: Symphonies Nos. 10-11, Symfonisk sats, 1971-73

    by 5:4 March 15, 2024 • 06:00
    March 15, 2024 • 06:00

    Symphony No. 10 (1971-1972) Not since Harrison Birtwistle’s Exody have i had so much trepidation writing about an orchestral piece. Pettersson’s Symphony No. 10 picks up the baton from No. 9 and doesn’t just run with it, but positively sprints for a full 25 minutes. That in itself makes the …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Allan Pettersson – Complete Edition: Symphonies Nos. 8-9, 1968-70

    by 5:4 March 11, 2024 • 06:00
    March 11, 2024 • 06:00

    Symphony No. 8 (1968-1969) Allan Pettersson’s previous two symphonies, though structured as single movements, both featured what amounts to two distinct sections. Symphony No. 8 is the same, though here Pettersson explicitly divides the work into two movements. This is an interesting decision, as it can easily be argued that, …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Allan Pettersson – Complete Edition: Symphonies Nos. 6-7, 1963-67

    by 5:4 March 7, 2024 • 06:00
    March 7, 2024 • 06:00

    Symphony No. 6 (1963-1966) i said previously that Symphony No. 5 upped the ante, so perhaps it seems like hyperbole to say that in Symphony No. 6 Pettersson does it again, but there really is no other way of perceiving this vast 60-minute, single span behemoth. By this point in …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Allan Pettersson – Complete Edition: Symphonies Nos. 4-5, 1958-62

    by 5:4 March 3, 2024 • 06:00
    March 3, 2024 • 06:00

    Symphony No. 4 (1958-1959) By now, the paradigm is well-established: Pettersson’s music is one of disruptive struggle, where contrasting, sometimes contradictory, musical ideas jostle and collide in a cycle of seemingly unstoppable volatility. In his previous work, the Concerto No. 3 for String Orchestra, Pettersson had allowed himself a greater …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Allan Pettersson – Complete Edition: Concertos Nos. 2 & 3 for String Orchestra, 1956-57

    by 5:4 February 29, 2024 • 06:00
    February 29, 2024 • 06:00

    Following on from his first three symphonies, in the mid-1950s Allan Pettersson’s compositional interest returned to strings, writing two more concertos, one small, one large.

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Allan Pettersson – Complete Edition: Symphonies Nos. 1-3, 1951-55

    by 5:4 February 25, 2024 • 06:00
    February 25, 2024 • 06:00

    Having spent a little over a decade exploring chamber and vocal music, from 1951 onward the trajectory of Allan Pettersson’s compositional journey changed, and changed permanently. In a similar way to Mahler, as soon as Pettersson began work on his first symphony, in 1951, it evidently became clear to him …

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5:4
  • About
    • Other writings
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    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions explored on 5:4
    • Albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
  • The Dialogues
  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
    • The Isolation Mixtapes
    • Mystery Mixtapes
    • Podcasts
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