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5:4
FestivalsPremières

Dark Music Days 2023 (Part 2)

by 5:4 February 7, 2023 • 16:34 1 comment

Dark Music Days 2023 (Part 1)

by 5:4 February 3, 2023 • 11:05 0 comment

Sole Massif – Encircle

by 5:4 January 30, 2023 • 09:00 0 comment
CD/Digital releasesFree music

Darren McClure – The World Is Made Of Words

by 5:4 January 26, 2023 • 09:00 0 comment

Fermata myrkir

by 5:4 January 24, 2023 • 09:00 0 comment

Seaming – Mermaid

by 5:4 January 23, 2023 • 09:00 0 comment
CD/Digital releasesFree music

Gelg – Look Around You

by 5:4 January 19, 2023 • 09:00 0 comment

Danz CM – While Mortals Sleep (Original Score)

by 5:4 January 16, 2023 • 08:36 0 comment

Ektoise – Down River

by 5:4 January 12, 2023 • 10:32 0 comment
CD/Digital releasesFree music

Gareth Davis, Jan Kleefstra, Romke Kleefstra – Sieleslyk

by 5:4 January 9, 2023 • 08:24 2 comments

Mixtape #67 : Best Albums of 2022

by 5:4 January 1, 2023 • 05:00 0 comment

Best Albums of 2022 (Part 2)

by 5:4 December 31, 2022 • 00:00 1 comment

more articles

  • ConcertsPremières

    BEAST FEaST 2022: Resonances (Part 2)

    by 5:4 July 10, 2022 • 11:41
    July 10, 2022 • 11:41

    In the previous part i highlighted the works heard at BEAST FEaST 2022 that went against the grain and handled their materials with gentleness. However, not surprisingly the dominant compositional attitude was one aspiring to power and heft. Though unassumingly titled, Helena Gough‘s Yolk featured an almost flamboyant display of…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    BEAST FEaST 2022: Resonances (Part 1)

    by 5:4 July 7, 2022 • 12:25
    July 7, 2022 • 12:25

    The key word, i think, is “feast”. There was something gloriously gluttonous about the quantity of music performed at BEAST FEaST 2022, though considering the festival was celebrating both the 40th anniversary of the founding of Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre and the recent 70th birthday of its founder Jonty Harrison,…

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  • Mixtapes

    Mixtape #65 : Love

    by 5:4 July 4, 2022 • 12:38
    July 4, 2022 • 12:38

    Almost as soon as i finished the previous 5:4 mixtape, focusing on war, it seemed necessary that the next one should go in the opposite direction. For this love-infused mix, i’ve not allowed myself the usual interpretative free rein but have for the most part focused on songs and tracks…

    Read more
  • Announcements

    Fermata Brum

    by 5:4 June 27, 2022 • 16:42
    June 27, 2022 • 16:42

    i’m heading off to Birmingham this evening, to savour the next few days’ acousmatic delights and disorientation at the BEAST FEaST festival. Words to follow once i’m back next week.

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Olga Neuwirth – Orlando

    by 5:4 June 27, 2022 • 16:12
    June 27, 2022 • 16:12

    There’s something rather depressing about the fact that, despite nearly a century separating the publication of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando in 1928, and the première of Olga Neuwirth‘s opera Orlando in 2019, the topic of gender identity and fluidity continues to be regarded as such a hot, controversial topic in…

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  • Announcements

    Gigs, gigs, gigs: BEAST FEaST 2022: Resonances

    by 5:4 June 23, 2022 • 14:02
    June 23, 2022 • 14:02

    It’s no fewer than 40 years since the formation of BEAST – Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre, one of the leading organisations pioneering the creation and presentation of electronic music. To celebrate this milestone, next week Birmingham University will be hosting BEAST FEaST 2022, a four-day extravaganza of concerts, installations and…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Annelien Van Wauwe – Flow

    by 5:4 June 20, 2022 • 15:59
    June 20, 2022 • 15:59

    Flow is the title of a new album featuring Belgian clarinettist Annelien Van Wauwe wielding the less common basset clarinet. Invented in the 1770s by Theodor Lotz (who had previously created the basset horn), the purpose of the instrument was in part to extend the lower range of the clarinet.…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes for Violin and Piano & Oskolki

    by 5:4 June 15, 2022 • 16:23
    June 15, 2022 • 16:23

    Chamber music implies a particular kind of intimacy, and that’s overwhelmingly the case on a new album of music by Russian-born composer Lera Auerbach. Part of its intensity comes from the fact that the performers are Avita Duo, comprising pianist Ksenia Nosikova and her violinist daughter Katya Moeller. This in…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    JH – APEIROZOAN

    by 5:4 June 11, 2022 • 18:21
    June 11, 2022 • 18:21

    far away and hidden in the lands beneath no moon,in gorges below pinnacles upon which dwell the dead,a cavern, overshadowed by encircling mountains, gapesbeneath a narrow vault across whose dark the stars are sped.from deep down in its cave there comes a sinister refrainthat resonates the barren, shadowed valleys with…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    LEYA – Eyeline

    by 5:4 June 6, 2022 • 16:46
    June 6, 2022 • 16:46

    One of the more beguiling albums i heard in 2020 was Flood Dream by New York duo LEYA. That being said, at the time i wasn’t at all sure what to make of it, except that it left me intrigued, fascinated and, in a way that i couldn’t really articulate,…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Juliana Hodkinson – Angel View

    by 5:4 May 31, 2022 • 12:23
    May 31, 2022 • 12:23

    i’ve crossed paths with the music of Juliana Hodkinson on a few occasions over the last few years, and they’ve always been somewhat discombobulating experiences. My response each time has been ambivalent, primarily due to the way that Hodkinson seeks to harness – and, potentially, rely upon – physical and…

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  • AnniversariesCD/Digital releases

    25 years on: John Wall – Fractuur

    by 5:4 May 26, 2022 • 05:00
    May 26, 2022 • 05:00

    Fractuur, released in 1997, occupies an interesting position in the output of British composer John Wall, coming at a pivotal point in his approach to working with sound. On Wall’s previous album Alterstill, released two years earlier, he had created five ambitious sound sculptures, playfully constructed from samples plundered from…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Orphax – Spectrum

    by 5:4 May 23, 2022 • 10:37
    May 23, 2022 • 10:37

    When it comes to drones, i tend to feel that each listener’s mileage doesn’t merely vary, but is often entirely unique. Nonetheless, from my perspective there are some nice things going on in Spectrum, a new two-track album from Netherlands artist Sietse van Erve, a.k.a. Orphax. The essence of each…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Tālivaldis Ķeniņš – Symphonies Nos. 5 & 8

    by 5:4 May 19, 2022 • 17:01
    May 19, 2022 • 17:01

    A long-standing interest of mine is exploring symphonies by composers i’ve never heard of. Apropos: Tālivaldis Ķeniņš, who until relatively recently i didn’t know was one of Latvia’s foremost 20th century composers. However, Ķeniņš was arguably as much Canadian as Latvian; after Russia re-occupied Latvia during World War II, Ķeniņš…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    New Estonian Chamber / Choral / Orchestral Music

    by 5:4 May 16, 2022 • 16:29
    May 16, 2022 • 16:29

    As an appendix to my coverage of this year’s Estonian Music Days, i want to highlight three new anthologies of Estonian contemporary music. Focusing on chamber, choral and orchestral music respectively, and featuring a diverse collection of ensembles and vocal groups, they complement and expand upon a previous series of…

    Read more
  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2022 (Part 4)

    by 5:4 May 9, 2022 • 09:52
    May 9, 2022 • 09:52

    A disconcerting aspect of some of the pieces performed at this year’s Estonian Music Days was the extent to which their material, language and / or behaviour was obviously begged, borrowed and / or stolen from heavily-worn musical conventions, to the point of outright cliché. This was especially apparent in…

    Read more
  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2022 (Interlude / Part 3)

    by 5:4 May 5, 2022 • 05:00
    May 5, 2022 • 05:00

    In addition to conventional acoustic and electronic music, there was the opportunity to explore a variety of audiovisual work during my time in Tallinn. This was primarily due to COMMUTE, a fringe festival run by the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, with late evening concerts each day, after the…

    Read more
  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2022 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 May 2, 2022 • 05:00
    May 2, 2022 • 05:00

    The smallest-scale events at this year’s Estonian Music Days were a pair of chamber concerts at each end of the festival. Irina Zahharenkova’s keyboard recital at the Arvo Pärt Centre encompassed extremes of musical invention. The most egregious were two works dating from the early 1990s by a Russian guitarist…

    Read more
  • AnnouncementsFestivals

    Gigs, gigs, gigs: Proms 2022

    by 5:4 April 29, 2022 • 09:59
    April 29, 2022 • 09:59

    This year’s Proms season has been announced in the last few days, and alongside all the standard fare, there’s the usual small smattering of contemporary music to get mildly excited about. Scanning through the programme, the most immediate thing that leapt out was familiarity, even predictability, the festival in general…

    Read more
  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2022 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 April 28, 2022 • 16:51
    April 28, 2022 • 16:51

    Even before my plane touched down at Tallinn airport, i knew that this year’s Estonian Music Days was going to feel a bit different. Last year marked the 20th anniversary of Estonia’s independence from Soviet occupation, and one of the effects of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine is that Tallinn…

    Read more
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5:4
  • About
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions reviewed on 5:4
    • Composer Map
    • 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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