Guitarist Dave Harrington, drummer Max Jaffe and saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi return for a sequel to their first musical meeting Speak, Moment, recorded and released by Los Angeles label AKP Recordings in 2024.
For the sequel, they go deeper, with a record whose A-side is essentially a suite of four distinct movements. On the B-side the three tracks reflect “a growing embrace of the sonic vacuum that electronic music depends on…a heaviness that the trio’s 2024 live record Zebulon! unlocked…and an outstretched and unhurried melodic ambience”.
What’s the music like?
There is a fascinating variety of styles and textures at play on this album, rooted in avant-garde jazz but exploring musical territories of great interest to those who love ambient electronica and upfront improvisation.
The four-movement suite with which the album begins moves between ambience and ear-shredding intensity, carefully controlled and yet with the opportunity for each of the three performers to cut loose, which they do on the extended sweat street 7-QS:ZBN9_. The second half finds Shiroishi assertive on Fractal Hash, while Harrington’s studied guitar leads the long form trackerKeeper under spacious California skies, a compelling track of ambience and yet powered by a curious tension.
The frisson of live performance crackles throughout this compelling trip, and at times it is possible if not too far-fetched to sense the wide open plains of the Mojave desert.
Does it all work?
Yes. The musical chemistry between the three is compelling, as are the sound pictures they create.
Is it recommended?
It is. Making Colors is a natural progression for the trio, whose musical acumen and communication is leading them to greater heights. Making Colors is a fascinating album, and a rewarding one to follow.
The rumours are true – after a protracted absence, celebrated electronic Scottish duo Boards of Canada are returning to the long player game with Inferno, to be released by Warp Records on 29 May 2026. Their first album since Tomorrow’s Harvest in 2013, Inferno has 18 tracks and lasts 70 minutes
The album announcement was prefaced by new music from the duo, Tape 05 appearing online last week – and set to take its place in the album as the fifth track, entitled Father and Son. If you haven’t heard it yet, you can listen here:
The album release is typically shrouded in mystery and creativity, though Tape 05 is an extremely promising teaser ahead of D-day.
by Ben Hogwood Image of Dvořák courtesy of Wikipedia
On this day in 1885, the first performance of Dvořák’s Seventh Symphony took place, at St. James’s Hall in London, with Dvořák himself conducting.
It is one of his finest symphonies, highly regarded by critics and audiences alike, and shows a clear affinity with the work of Brahms. Characteristically for Dvořák, it is bursting with melody – as this classic recording with the London Symphony Orchestra and István Kertész shows:
Bristol-based composer Dan Moore made a three-day field trip to Kielder Water in 2022, having completed some extensive work into the history of the site.
This EP reflects on what he found, both from first-hand experience and from sonic material gathered from the site, which is Britain’s biggest man-made reservoir, a controversial redevelopment plan dating back to the 1960s. Dan’s music blends electronics with field recordings, interview samples and more analogue writing for strings.
Throughout the project he was mentored by film composer Dan Jones.
What’s the music like?
Consistently engaging, and pictorial.
As you might expect, the textures are wide open, but Moore approaches his audio descriptions in a number of different ways. The Architect is busy, its riffs playing backwards and forwards over a spacious backdrop, but the speed drops completely as the music pans out for VT-15, a piece of luxurious ambient textures but uncertain harmonies, using field recordings made from the tunnel underneath the valve tower. It has both depth and a glistening surface, richly coloured.
A Shift In The Land is initially uncertain of its direction, wavering uncertainly, until an emphatic string motif weighs in powerfully, dropping anchor over a distorted backing. The lapping of water is the restful backing to Mike, though the string figures above – often beautiful – are wary, too, and when dropping away in pitch leave the listener feeling uncertain.
Does it all work?
It does – and the only regret is the music isn’t longer, for there are some vivid stories here.
Is it recommended?
Yes. Kielder Water is an ambient experience but is tinged with unease, sitting on the edge of reality. Its music has the same appeal as the breathtaking scenes you encounter on a visit, and have an equally mysterious allure, too.
Fleur Barron (mezzo-soprano), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Carlo Rizzi
Puccini arr. Rizzi Tosca – Symphonic Suite (1900, arr. 2020) Respighi Il Tramonto (1917-18) Puccini arr. Rizzi Madama Butterfly – Symphonic Suite (1904, arr. 2020) Respighi Pini di Roma (1923-4)
Symphony Hall, Birmingham Thursday 16 April 2026
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photo of Fleur Barron by Victoria Cadisch
Carlo Rizzi has long been a familiar presence in Birmingham – though as music director (for 13 years) at Welsh National Opera rather than conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, with whom his rapport was nevertheless undoubted as tonight’s concert confirmed.
The theatrical essence of Puccini’s operas inevitably detracts from their orchestral mastery, but there is no reason why their music cannot be adapted for the concert hall – as Rizzi duly demonstrated with these two ‘symphonic suites’ created during the COVID lockdown. The incentive had come earlier when conducting the suite from Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, and anyone familiar with that rather crassly assembled concoction will surely concur that Rizzi has performed a much greater service for two of the Italian composer’s most famous operas.
As regards Tosca, its unwavering concentration makes it difficult to extract purely orchestral passages of any length – thereby vindicating making Rizzi’s decision to adapt this music as it stands and not ‘instrumentalize’ the vocal lines. Centred on the ill-fated lovers Tosca and Cavaradossi, his suite pivots between high emotion and fraught pathos while still managing to encompass the extent of the drama throughout the two hours of its unfolding. Put another way, those unfamiliar with this opera would be left in little doubt as to its dramatic potency.
If the overtly discursive quality of Madam Butterfly makes it less amenable for being distilled in this way, its score offers an abundance of orchestral finesse and local colour of which Rizzi has made the most. Here the emphasis comes even more on the eponymous heroine, her main set-pieces diminished only incrementally when shorn of their vocal component. Nor does this suite overlook the searing cruelty of the denouement, achieved here through a shattering burst of orchestral violence which felt scarcely less visceral than in operas from Janáček and Berg.
In between these high-octane encapsulations, a modicum of restraint (though hardly serenity) was conveyed by The Sunset. When setting Shelley’s typically over-wrought poem from 1816, Respighi was evidently guided by the disjunctive if not necessarily jarring transition between its rapt initial stages and its anguished continuation towards an ending of fatalistic repose. Its richly enveloping string-writing was fastidiously rendered – an apposite context for Canadian mezzo Fleur Barron (above) to project vocal writing no less suffused with radiant emotional warmth.
Respighi in more familiar guise concluded this programme. His Pines of Rome was accorded an insightful reading – whether in the raucous animation of those ‘of the Villa Borghese’, the sombre opulence of those ‘near a Catacomb’, the enfolding ecstasy of those ‘at the Janiculum’ (pre-recorded nightingale ascending headily through the expanse of Symphony Hall) then the surging majesty of those ‘of the Appian Way’, with its overwhelmingly cinematic peroration. Music expressly intended to bring the house down, which was certainly true on this occasion.
It set the seal on an imaginatively programmed and superbly played concert, making one hope that Rizzi will soon be returning. Next week, however, brings music of a very different nature when Ryan Wigglesworth takes the podium in commemorative music by Purcell and Brahms.
To read more about the CBSO’s 2025/26 season, visit the CBSO website. Click on the names for more on conductor Carlo Rizzi and mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron
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