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  • FestivalsPremières

    AFEKT 2024 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 November 20, 2024 • 11:56
    November 20, 2024 • 11:56

    As i mentioned previously, the majority of this year’s AFEKT was focused on solo performers – primarily members of Ensemble Musikfabrik – with or without electronics, and these proved to be the strongest events of the festival.

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2024: the premières (Part 2)

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

    Thomas Adès has always tended to be as qualitatively erratic as he is consistently overhyped, but his new orchestral piece Aquifer finds him back on the right side of accomplishment. The title refers to a subterranean stratum through which water can flow, and it’s a superb descriptor for both the …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Christopher McFall – I Throw The Switch On The Midnight Snake

    by 5:4 September 6, 2024 • 06:00
    September 6, 2024 • 06:00

    It was with no small excitement that i heard a few weeks ago that US sound artist Christopher McFall was bringing out a new album. Not only is McFall one of the most captivating artists working with field recordings that i’ve ever encountered, but it’s also been no fewer than …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Gloria Coates – Time Frozen – Works for Chamber Orchestra

    by 5:4 April 19, 2024 • 16:34
    April 19, 2024 • 16:34

    This time last year I was deeply immersed in the music of Gloria Coates. preparing for the Dialogue we were planning to record in July. It still fills me with deep sadness that Gloria’s cancer got to her before we could get together, but it’s been nice to see a …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Jefre Cantu-Ledesma – Devotion

    by 5:4 January 24, 2024 • 06:00
    January 24, 2024 • 06:00

    The next freely available release i want to explore is Devotion, by US musician Jefre Cantu-Ledesma. It’s a 20-minute fantastical work that lives up to its title by suggesting varying forms of ecstatic focus.

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Conure & Kenji Siratori – Heteromania

    by 5:4 January 12, 2024 • 06:00
    January 12, 2024 • 06:00

    Heteromania is a collaboration between sound artist Conure (aka Mark Wilson) and cyberpunk poet Kenji Siratori, originally created around the start of 2007, but subsequently unreleased, so Wilson made it available online in 2011. While i’m only familiar with a relatively small amount of the extensive Conure back catalogue, i’ve …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Ko T. C. – Pink Grey Sky

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

    It’s January, the month of resolutions and reduced bank balances, so once again i’m starting the year exploring some of the more interesting music i’ve encountered that’s available free online. It was in 2021, while in Huddersfield for the festival, that i learned about the music of Ko Takasugi-Czernowin, aka …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Coppice – Draw Agreement

    by 5:4 December 11, 2023 • 16:29
    December 11, 2023 • 16:29

    Few releases i’ve explored this year have pulled me into their orbit so completely, and so (in the best sense) puzzlingly, as Draw Agreement by the US experimental duo Coppice. i’ve been following the work of Noé Cuéllar and Joseph Kramer for around a decade, and have been consistently entranced …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    Sacrum Profanum 2023 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 November 22, 2023 • 12:23
    November 22, 2023 • 12:23

    As well as the intimacy demonstrated in several concerts at this year’s Sacrum Profanum festival in Kraków, many of the other performances provided opportunities for immersive listening, often within the context of large-scale durations. Two of these, both examples of primary colour, bargain basement minimalism, may well have been striving …

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  • Festivals

    Sacrum Profanum 2023 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 November 16, 2023 • 11:18
    November 16, 2023 • 11:18

    Sacrum Profanum is a festival that has taken place in Kraków, Poland, since 2003. As its name suggests, the original purpose of the festival was to juxtapose sacred and secular music, from the 18th and 19th centuries, but since 2008 it’s been focused on music from the 20th and 21st …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    AFEKT 2023 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 November 10, 2023 • 06:00
    November 10, 2023 • 06:00

    Borders are places of confusion, uncertainty and, often, danger, and in this context concerts such as the ones previously discussed at AFEKT 2023 – where most works had strong similarities while one or two were markedly different – raised related questions. Is such similarity attractive and important because it suggests …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Iceland Symphony Orchestra – Atmospheriques Vol. I

    by 5:4 September 9, 2023 • 06:00
    September 9, 2023 • 06:00

    Two years have passed since the Iceland Symphony Orchestra’s previous series of albums, Recurrence, Concurrence, Occurrence, and their latest release, Atmospheriques Vol. I, is the start of a new series. As before, the orchestra is conducted by Daníel Bjarnasson, and the emphasis is again on Icelandic composers, though here they’re …

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  • Premières

    Proms 2023: the premières (Part 3)

    by 5:4 August 30, 2023 • 16:20
    August 30, 2023 • 16:20

    Staunch conservatives don’t merely hold sway over our current government but also, it seems, our concert halls, judging by the latest desolation of premières at this year’s Proms. In the case of the Prelude and Fugue in G major by Rachel Laurin, posthumously premièred in Isabelle Demers’ organ recital, i …

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  • Announcements

    Gloria Coates, 1933-2023

    by 5:4 August 19, 2023 • 09:55
    August 19, 2023 • 09:55

    i was deeply saddened to receive a message around an hour ago, with the news that composer Gloria Coates has died. i only began to spend significant time with Gloria’s work last year, when it finally dawned on me just how fascinating and remarkable it is. This led to my …

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  • Premières

    Proms 2023: the premières (Part 2)

    by 5:4 August 15, 2023 • 12:45
    August 15, 2023 • 12:45

    It’s been a disappointing, demoralising experience spending time with the most recent batch of premières at the Proms. Derrick Skye‘s Nova Plexus, premièred by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the end of last month, was easily the most egregious of them, being yet another example of the cinematised …

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  • Premières

    Proms 2023: the premières (Part 1)

    by 5:4 July 29, 2023 • 13:07
    July 29, 2023 • 13:07

    Back in April, when i summarised the new music featured at this year’s Proms, i mentioned that the time might have come for me to finally give up trying to find some enthusiasm for its safe, unimaginative offerings. The 2023 season has been up and running for a couple of …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Alvin Lucier – Swing Bridge / Sizzles; Bára Gísladóttir – SILVA; Kali Malone – Does Spring Hide Its Joy

    by 5:4 June 29, 2023 • 11:23
    June 29, 2023 • 11:23

    It’s been interesting to compare and contrast three recent releases all of which feature drone at the core of their musical language. (The music is long, so i’m going to keep this quite short.) Drone music tends to operate in one of two ways: either by establishing a literal fundamental, …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Gloria Coates – Symphony No. 11 “Philemon und Baucis” (World Première)

    by 5:4 April 7, 2023 • 09:37
    April 7, 2023 • 09:37

    i’m bringing this year’s Lent Series to a close with another of Gloria Coates‘ remarkable symphonies. Symphony No. 11 was completed in 1999, being a response to a commission from Baron von Freyberg for the Festspiele Europäische Wochen, with the stipulation that the work should be related to Ovid’s recounting …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Gloria Coates – Symphony No. 7 (UK Première)

    by 5:4 March 14, 2023 • 07:48
    March 14, 2023 • 07:48

    Gloria Coates‘ Symphony No. 7 was composed from 1989 to 1990, a highly politically-charged time for those (as Coates was) living in Germany. The Berlin Wall would subsequently fall (on 9 November 1989), but while this promised to usher in a new era of peace, the profound uncertainty that suffused …

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  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Gloria Coates – Symphony No. 1 “Music on Open Strings” (UK Première)

    by 5:4 February 20, 2023 • 17:12
    February 20, 2023 • 17:12

    For this year’s Lent Series i’m turning to a subject that’s one of my personal passions: symphonies. It’s interesting to hear how the word ‘symphony’ has, over time, been defined, consolidated, expanded, elevated, deconstructed, redefined, and along the way become sufficiently loaded that many contemporary composers choose to avoid both …

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Nils Henrik Asheim: Lydkilder Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices Music Beyond Airports: appraising ambient music Simon Cummings | 間 Studies vol. 6

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5:4
  • About
    • Other writings
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • 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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