modern composition
Track: Hear Jim Stewart’s ‘Dead Sea’: the composer responds to a Paul Nash painting, taken from the forthcoming ‘Stills 01’ music and painting project
STILLS 01 is the first, beguiling three-track release from new imprint String and Tins Recordings that looks to marry the disciplines of music and fine art, insomuch as each piece of music recorded and issued in the series is a direct response to a painting in the collection of Tate Britain. The first in the …
Track: Lea Bertucci – ‘An Arc Of The Horizon’: drone and woodwind in impressionistic compositional flight prelude her new album
NEW YORK’S Lea Bertucci is a composer and sound artist who first picked up a sax at the tender age of 9, going to learn the disciplines of the instrument in classical and jazz before, always hungry for the news, starting to explore more abstract musical forms in her late teens. With roundabout a dozen …
Track: James Heather drops the soft lament of ‘Passing Soul’ ahead of his late May EP
CONTEMPORARY composer James Heather is set to release his first collection of original works in four years in the shape of Modulations: EP2, which will be out on Coldcut’s other label besides Ninja Tune, Ahead Of Our Time, in late May. The new EP of subtle, ringing melodies is preluded by the slowly unfolding, keyed …
Track: Mischa Blanos unveils a debut album of percussive piano for InFiné with ‘Silicon Road’
INFINÉ, the French label which has a catalogue for which the adjective ‘eclectic’ is truly justifiable – there really can’t be many (any?) labels which can boast releases by both Mozart and Carl Craig – is debuting an exploratory new album by Romanian pianist and producer Mischa Blanos, venturing out under his own sail away …
See: The video for Naoko Sakata’s ‘Improvisation 2’: another fluid, free-flying expression at the solo piano from next week’s album
NAOKO SAKATA, the free improvisational piano talent who Anna von Hausswolff just knew she had to sign to her Pomperirossa Records imprint, has released another flowing, epic, impressionistic improvisation from her forthcoming debt album for the label, “Improvisation 2”, which you can hear right here. Based in Gothenburg, Sakata is a good fir for Pomperipossa, …
Track: Fougère – ‘Leap Of Faith’: piano delicacy radiates hope of a brighter place
FOUGÈRE is the modern compositional project of Jamie Norton, an artist who’s quietly gone about helping fashion some of the biggest songs of modern times as a musician and arranger; he’s worked with The Brand New Heavies, Brett Anderson and Take That. But as Fougère his work sits in the bright melodic shimmer of artists …
News: Neil Cowley presents a live-streamed recital live from London upon the release of ‘Hall Of Mirrors’
IN CELEBRATION of the release of his rather excellent longform essay into piano and electronica, Hall Of Mirrors, Neil Cowley is presenting a live-streamed performance from London’s Lafayette. The performance, live-streamed for the first time last night, will be available to watch in full until March 18th. The contemporary composer who has moved from jazz …
See: Conrad Clipper – ‘Heron’s Book Of Dreams’: piano pastoralism from Berlin composer hiding in pseudonymity
CONRAD CLIPPER is the pseudonymous venture of a Berlin composer and multi-instrumentalist who has a focus on prepared, programmed and played piano. He’s lauded over at BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction, whose presenters have called his work “a rare and tender sonic wonder.” His debut album, 2016’s Cycle of Liminal Rites, took the form of a …
Premiere: Christine Ott – ‘Landscape’: haunting modern compositional pastoralism
THE FRENCH composer and multi-instrumentalist Christine Ott can never be accused of running with the pack in her compositional aesthetic; down the years since her first release, Solitude Nomade, in 2009, she’s really pushed the possibilities of modern composition, not in experimenting for the sake of it, but in trying to express and elicit a …
See: The video for Matt Emery’s ‘Anxiety Mist’: a samurai waiting for battle as told by solo cello
BRITISH composer Matt Emery, who calls the lovely Injazero Records home, has launched a series of recordings focusing on one instrument at a time; and for his first EP in the series has chosen to shine a light on the cello, which is starting to find a bigger appreciation as a standalone instrument through the …