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UK

  • Festivals

    World New Music Days 2025, Portugal (Part 3)

    by 5:4 July 4, 2025 • 09:19
    July 4, 2025 • 09:19

    The 2025 World New Music Days included a healthy amount of electronic and electroacoustic music. Interestingly, most of the best of them were individual submissions, not part of any country’s official selection. i’m not entirely sure what that signifies, but it’s worth noting. All of these works were performed in …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Formuls – Disorder as a function of time (from Graz to Holycross); Obsession as a function of time (inertia)

    by 5:4 June 28, 2025 • 08:17
    June 28, 2025 • 08:17

    It’s always good to hear new music from Birmingham composer James Dooley, aka Formuls. He’s recently put out two releases that are essentially siblings. It’s been a while (too long) since i last wrote about Dooley’s work, but on that occasion i was exploring music that sat in various levels …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Only Connect 2025

    by 5:4 April 22, 2025 • 14:30
    April 22, 2025 • 14:30

    Let’s return to one of the great maxims of not just contemporary but all music: size isn’t important. In the case of Norway’s Only Connect festival, its short, 2½-day duration belied the fact that its content was highly concentrated. As such, one event started to blur into the next, into …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Natasha Barrett – Toxic Colour

    by 5:4 April 8, 2025 • 15:23
    April 8, 2025 • 15:23

    It seems fitting that the unique acousmatic music of Natasha Barrett, a composer whose life and work have encompassed the UK (originally, for a while) and Norway (later, for much longer), should have been primarily served by labels from those two countries. In earlier times it was the Oslo-based Aurora …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Musica Nova 2025 (Part 5)

    by 5:4 March 28, 2025 • 12:06
    March 28, 2025 • 12:06

    One of the most fascinating events at this year’s Musica Nova festival was LOKS – four concerts at once. Not so much a performance as a film juxtaposing and compositing four separate performances, it featured music by four composers whose initials form the title: Lauri Supponen, Oene val Geel, Krists …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Musica Nova 2025 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 February 26, 2025 • 10:08
    February 26, 2025 • 10:08

    i’ve commented before on my general disinterest, and usual disregard, for music festival themes. Musica Nova, Helsinki’s biennial new music extravaganza, opted for ‘together’ as its theme this year, and while that word is sufficiently vague as to have almost no meaning, there were numerous times when that word insinuated …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Man Without Country – Daytrotter Session – Aug 5, 2013

    by 5:4 January 18, 2025 • 07:43
    January 18, 2025 • 07:43

    One of the most exciting – and, typically, underappreciated – pop acts of the 2010s was Man Without Country, the welsh duo of Tomas Greenhalf and Ryan James. Beginning in 2011, they released a series of truly outstanding singles – including King Complex, Inflammable Heart, Puppets, Migrating Clay Pigeon, Closet …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Lauren Redhead & Alistair Zaldua – San Servolo Registri Festival Concert

    by 5:4 January 14, 2025 • 09:32
    January 14, 2025 • 09:32

    An interesting album that came out quite late last year is San Servolo Registri Festival Concert, featuring assorted organ-based electroacoustic works performed by Lauren Redhead and Alistair Zaldua. It’s a curious mixture of music, yet while the pieces demonstrate a certain amount of diversity, several of them share aspects in …

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  • Best of the Year

    Best Albums of 2024 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 December 31, 2024 • 00:00
    December 31, 2024 • 00:00

    And finally we reach the zenith, the apex of this year’s best albums, each and every one of them a bewilderment of shock, awe and wonder.

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  • Best of the Year

    Best Albums of 2024 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 December 30, 2024 • 00:00
    December 30, 2024 • 00:00

    It was 16 years ago that my first Best Albums of the Year list was published, and for most of the years since there have been 40 entries on the list. However, there were many times when recommending 40 as genuinely ‘best’ felt like a struggle, and a few years …

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  • 20th CenturyAdvent Calendar

    Hugh Wood – Variations for Orchestra

    by 5:4 December 25, 2024 • 05:00
    December 25, 2024 • 05:00

    HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Behind the final door on this year’s Advent Calendar is a short but exciting work by one of England’s more curiously neglected composers, Hugh Wood. The Variations for Orchestra began life 30 years ago, apparently composed over a three-year period from 1994 to 1997. That seems a surprisingly …

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  • Advent Calendar

    Aphex Twin (arr. Stefan Freund) – Cock/Ver10

    by 5:4 December 21, 2024 • 06:00
    December 21, 2024 • 06:00

    i’ve always felt surprised that Aphex Twin‘s music can be transferred from its original electronic form into instrumental configurations. The proof that it can has been demonstrated several times, ever since Philip Glass’ masterful orchestration of Icct Hedral way back in 1995, and in previous Advent Calendars i’ve discussed arrangements …

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  • Advent Calendar

    Janek Schaefer – Tri-phonic Revolutions

    by 5:4 December 20, 2024 • 06:00
    December 20, 2024 • 06:00

    In 1997, British musician Janek Schaefer created an instrument he named the ‘tri-phonic turntable’, a pimped-up record deck featuring a trio of tone arms and the ability to play fast and loose with rotation direction and speed. That same year, he gave a performance at the Urban Salon in London …

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Sasha Scott – Humans May Not Apply (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 16, 2024 • 06:00
    December 16, 2024 • 06:00

    Behind today’s Advent Calendar door is a quick bit of fun from British composer Sasha Scott. In 2019, Scott won the Senior category in the BBC Young Composer of the Year Competition with a four-minute orchestral-electronic hybrid titled Humans May Not Apply. It’s a work that both pits the acoustic …

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Larry Goves – Borneo Rivers 2 (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 13, 2024 • 06:00
    December 13, 2024 • 06:00

    One of the more memorable pieces to have been featured in the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival’s annual ‘Shorts’ day (comprising a conveyor belt of miniature concerts, all free to the public) in recent years is Borneo Rivers 2 by Larry Goves. In many ways it’s an unassuming piece: just six …

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Naomi Pinnock – I am, I am (World Première)

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

    When words emerge in Naomi Pinnock‘s music, that’s precisely what they do: emerge. This is achieved partly by paring down the text to a bare essential minimum (The writings of Jakob Br. uses just two words, for example), but more due to the manner in which the words are articulated. …

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  • Advent Calendar

    Michael Finnissy – Two Motets

    by 5:4 December 8, 2024 • 06:00
    December 8, 2024 • 06:00

    British composer Michael Finnissy has so often turned to extant music in his own compositions that it’s practically one of the defining features of his work. Today’s Advent Calendar piece is one of his most blissful responses to earlier music, rethinking material by Byrd and Ockeghem as Two Motets for …

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Electra Perivolaris – A Forest Reawakens (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 2, 2024 • 06:00
    December 2, 2024 • 06:00

    It might seem a bit seasonally early, but the title of today’s Advent Calendar piece is, i suspect, to be taken figuratively. A Forest Reawakens by Electra Perivolaris is a short but potent orchestral work that articulates what one could read as the beginnings of a process of rebirth or …

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  • Advent Calendar

    C Duncan – Dance from a Distance

    by 5:4 December 1, 2024 • 06:00
    December 1, 2024 • 06:00

    It’s 1 December, and the festive season is distantly hoving into view, the perfect time for another 5:4 Advent Calendar, featuring 25 days of sonic wonders, curiosities, trifles and delights. The first of these baubles is Dance from a Distance, a miniature orchestral bit of fun from one of my …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2024 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 November 28, 2024 • 12:50
    November 28, 2024 • 12:50

    Despite the fact that in recent years my general feeling about the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is that it’s become over-familiar and rather predictable – perhaps in need of a fresh start / reboot – my experience during the opening weekend of this year’s HCMF was genuinely unexpected: music that …

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