Category Archives: On record

On Record – Group Listening: Walks (PRAH Recordings)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Clarinettist Stephen Black and pianist Paul Jones are back for a third album as Group Listening, but with a twist. Whereas the first two albums, Selected Works Vols. 1 and 2, were cover-based, Walks is an album of original compositions.

These include Frogs, inspired by an experience Jones had on holiday in Madeira, where a group of frogs were collected under a bridge, their croaks amplified and echoed in a chorus caught in a field recording.

Walks is also inspired by Robert Walser’s novella The Walk, and its recognition of the space achieved when out in the great wide open under your own steam.

What’s the music like?

Group Listening are really on to something here, the clarinet and piano base acting as a springboard for some imaginative compositions and sonic backdrops.

Field recordings continue to play a big part in their work, and the introductory 5 1°29 09.6 N 3°12 30.6 W sets the music in perspective with footsteps and birdsong, the Walks made real as though we are going somewhere outside. The steady pace is reflected also in New Brighton, where softly voiced thoughts unwind over an easy four to the floor beat, giving a sense of awakening.

Frogs is the standout composition, framed by the remarkable field recording but responding with a tender clarinet duet in play. Hills End is dubby but full of bloom, while Grey Swans, the longest composition on the album, has murmuring clarinets offset by a regular chime from higher piano. Old Reeds has a triple time lilt, hinting at a very different sort of dance.

To close, Pavane IX opens out into the airy Denge, with a deep electric piano sound suggesting the walk has reached a large body of water.

Does it all work?

It does. There is an appealing freshness about this music, made instinctively but realised with sensitivity in the editing too.

Is it recommended?

Yes indeed. Walks is a really enjoyable complement to the first two Selected Listening albums, but it suggests even more creative times lie ahead – and that Group Listening are only scratching the surface of what they might achieve in the future. Definitely a pair to keep an eye on.

For fans of… 

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Published post no.2,185 – Tuesday 21 May 2024

On Record – Zoë Beyers, English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods: Elcock: Violin Concerto, Symphony no.8 (Nimbus)

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Zoë Beyers (violin), English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods

Elcock
Violin Concerto Op.13 (1996-2003, rev. 2020)
Symphony no.8 Op.37 (1981/2021)

Nimbus NI6446 [56’24’’]
Producer and Engineer Phil Rowlands
Recorded 28 July 2021 (Symphony), 26 May 2022 (Violin Concerto) at Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

The English Symphony Orchestra and Kenneth Woods add to their much lauded 21st Century Symphony Project with this release devoted to Steve Elcock (b.1957), juxtaposing two major works which confirm his standing among the leading European symphonists of his generation.

What’s the music like?

Both works heard here only gradually assumed their definitive form. Composed at stages over almost a decade, the Violin Concerto marks something of a transition between less ambitious pieces for local musicians and those symphonic works which have come to dominate Elcock’s output. Its initial Allegro vivo is a tensile sonata design whose rhythmic energy is maintained throughout, with enough expressive leeway for its second theme to assume greater emotional emphasis in the reprise. There follows a Molto tranquillo whose haunting main theme, at first unfolded by the soloist over undulating upper strings in a texture pervaded by change-ringing techniques, is a potent inspiration. A pavane-like idea soon comes into focus while the closing stage, reaching an eloquent plateau before it evanesces into silence, stays long in the memory. The short but eventful finale is a Passacaglia whose theme (audibly related to previous ideas) accelerates across five variations from Andante to Presto, before culminating in a heightened cadenza-like passage on violin and timpani then a peremptory yet decisive orchestral pay-off.

The Eighth Symphony has its antecedents even further back, having begun as a string quartet in the early 1980s, though it continues those processes of evolution and integration central to the seven such works which precede it. It reflects the impact of the Sixth Symphony by Allan Pettersson (still awaiting its UK premiere after 58 years), but whereas that epic work centres on fateful arrival, Elcock’s single movement is more about striving towards a destination that remains tantalizingly beyond reach. Numerous pithy motifs are stated in the formative stages, as the music alternates between relative stasis and dynamism before being thrown into relief by the emergence (just before the mid-point) of a trumpet melody that goes on to determine the course of this piece as it builds inexorably towards a sustained climax then subsides into a searching postlude. Overt resolution may have been eschewed, yet the overriding sense of cohesion and inevitability duly outweighs that mood described by the composer as ‘‘one of desperation in the teeth of impending catastrophe’’ which, in itself, becomes an affirmation.

Does it all work?

Certainly, given both works receive well prepared and finely realized performances – notable for the way Elcock’s demanding yet idiomatic string writing is realized with real conviction. The concerto is a tough challenge for any soloist and one Zoë Beyers meets with assurance – its close-knit interplay of soloist and orchestra brought off with admirable precision, and its occasional modal subtleties rendered as enrichments of the tonal trajectory. Elcock has been fortunate in his recorded exponents, and this new ESO release is emphatically no exception.

Is it recommended?

Indeed, and good to hear that, as the ESO’s current John McCabe Composer-in-Association, Elcock will feature on a follow-up issue of his pieces Wreck and Concerto Grosso, along with the recent Fermeture. For now, this latest release warrants the strongest of recommendations.

Listen & Buy

You can listen to sample tracks and purchase on the Naxos Direct website. For further information on the artists, click on the names for more on Zoë Beyers, the English Symphony Orchestra and their conductor Kenneth Woods. Click on the name for more on composer Steve Elcock

Published post no.2,182 – Saturday 18 May 2024

On Record – Jon McKiel: Hex (You’ve Changed Records)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

New Brunswick artist Jon McKiel returns with a follow-up to the successful 2020 album Bobby Joe Hope. Hex makes use of new sampling techniques he discovered while working on that record, working with JOYFULTALK’s Jay Crocker to make an opus described in the press release as ‘equal parts flower field and burning building’.

What’s the music like?

The promotional material has it spot on. For every moment of brightness in McKiel’s music there is a dark undertone, creating an appealing tension that runs through each song.

McKiel’s vocals are on first impression quite deadpan, but with subsequent listening they are loaded with meaning, and complemented by imaginative instrumentation and counter melodies. Hex has a catchy chorus, ever so slightly sinister, until an unexpected saxophone solo breezes across it like late summer sun.

String goes for an appealing wander with loops of guitars, the sampling work paying dividends, while the woozy textures of The Fix hang heavy in the air, dressed with distant vocals. This song has a barren outlook, “on a land where nothing grows”, and wants to get away from the working day, “still running from the zeros and ones”. While this might come across as pessimistic, there is a lighter touch to the music that gives the listener hope.

This bittersweet approach is a hallmark of McKiel’s music, with pastoral moments such as Everlee taking time to appreciate their surroundings while sitting in the aftermath of world-weariness.

Does it all work?

It does. There is melodic invention aplenty here, fresh lyrical insights and influences that go back to late-1960s pop and psychedelia. All combine for a very satisfying whole.

Is it recommended?

Yes, enthusiastically. If Jon McKiel is a new name to you, then no need to hesitate – he is a clever, multi-dimensional songwriter who makes music appealing to the human spirit.

For fans of… Steve Mason, Gruff Rhys, Grandaddy

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Published post no.2,179 – Wednesday 15 May 2024

On Record – Jordan Rakei – The Loop (Decca)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Singer-songwriter Jordan Rakei celebrates his move to Decca with a fifth album. There is definitely the sense of a new chapter beginning here, and not just with his record label, for Rakei has recently crossed into his thirties while becoming a father.

Remaining true to his soul roots, he has produced the album himself.

What’s the music like?

This is a heartfelt record, delivered by a songwriter who seems to have reached an extra depth in his work. Jordan Rakei has kept the polish that made his previous albums so good but has added an even more relatable level of emotion and depth.

Songs like Flowers show the emotional lengths he is prepared to go to, while Freedom is a properly uplifting piece of music with gospel choir in tow – surely one of the best new songs we will hear this year. There is a deep vulnerability here, expressed in songs like Forgive, and especially the closing pair Miracle and A Little Life which cuts deep.

The arrangements are beautifully wrought, especially the strings of Hopes And Dreams, another emotional high point – while the lyrics are more to the point than ever, no more so than Royal’s confession that “I’ve royally fucked up”.

Does it all work?

It does. Rakei is a fine and very relatable artist, communicating strongly but with a grace and elegance that stands him in good stead.

Is it recommended?

It is. Five albums in, and Jordan Rakei delivers something of a musical watershed.

For fans of… Sampha, SBTRKT, James Blake

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You can explore purchase options at Jordan Rakei’s website

Published post no.2,178 – Tuesday 14 May 2024

On Record – Peter Herresthal, Arctic Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra – Missy Mazzoli: Dark with Excessive Bright (BIS)

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abfPeter Herresthal (violin); bMembers of Arctic Philharmonic [Oganes Girunyan, Øyvind Mehus (violins), Natalya Girunyan (viola), Mary Auner (cello), Ingvild Maria Mehus (double bass)]; cdeArctic Philharmonic / Tim Weiss; aBergen Philharmonic Orchestra / James Gaffigan

Mazzoli
Dark with Excessive Bright (2021 – versions with string orchestra (a) and string quintet (b)). Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) (2013)c
These Worlds in Us (2021)d
Orpheus Undone (2021)e
Vespers for Violin (2014)f

BIS BIS-2572 [66’22’’]
Producers Jørn Pedersen, Hans Kipfer Engineers Gunnar Herfel Nilsen, Håkan Ekman

Recorded 4 June 2021 (a) at Grieghallen, Bergen; March 2022 at Storman Concert Hall, Bodø

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

BIS issues the first release to be devoted to the orchestral output of Missy Mazzoli (b.1980), New York-based and firmly established among the most significant opera composers of her generation, recorded with a stellar cast of musicians at venues on the west coast of Norway.

What’s the music like?

In his prefatory note, American author Garth Greenwell characterizes Mazzoli’s music thus – ‘‘Each piece is a journey no step of which is forgotten, so one arrives in a place that feels at once familiar and absolutely new’’, which seems a fair description of its audible connection with the past while, at the same time, absorbing accrued influences into an idiom wholly of today. That each of the works bears this out, albeit in different ways and with unpredictable outcomes, says much about the effectiveness of her modus operandi these past two decades.

Earliest here is These Worlds in Us – its title drawn from a poem by James Tate concerning the wartime death of his father, leading to music whose interplay between feelings of pain and elation is abetted by a tightly focussed evolution. An identical duration aside, Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) could hardly be more removed in its formal corollary to that of the solar system; such abstraction offset by the ‘sinfonia’ connotations with a Medieval hurdy-gurdy whose modal drone, recreated here on an electronic keyboard, underlies the headily increasing velocity of this piece. Nominally the paraphrase of a larger work, Vespers for Violin combines solo violin with an electronic soundtrack where overtones of keyboards, voices and strings subsumed into a texture such as proves at once rarified and evocative.

Framing this release are two versions of the title-track. Having started out as a concerto for double bass and strings, Dark with Excessive Bright was reworked for violin at the request of Peter Herresthal – a quotation from Milton being the catalyst for a piece that refashions Baroque techniques from a present-day vantage, and one which succeeds equally well with orchestral strings or string quintet. Most compelling, though, is Orpheus Undone – a suite whose two movements (respectively 10 and five minutes) open-out that emotional trauma    of Eurydice’s death with a methodical while always cumulative inexorability as to suggest that Mazzoli could distinguish herself in the symphonic domain were she to take time-out from that of opera. Certainly, one of the most absorbing orchestral pieces of recent years.

Does it all work?

Pretty much always, though the composer is fortunate to have had such advocacy from the musicians heard here. Herresthal reaffirms his standing as go-to violinist for new music, his playing as subtle and as resourceful as this concerto requires. The much in-demand James Gaffigan gets luminous playing from the Bergen Philharmonic, as does Tim Weiss from the Arctic Philharmonic of whose Sinfonietta he is artistic director. Sound of spaciousness and clarity, along with succinctly informative notes by the composer, are further enhancements.

Is it recommended?

It is, and those suitably drawn into Mazzoli’s sound-world are encouraged to check out other releases – notably the powerful and unsettling opera Proving Up (Pentatone PTC5186754) or the endlessly thought-provoking Vespers for a New Dark Age (New Amsterdam NWAM062).

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You can explore purchase options for this recording at the Presto website. Click on the names for more on the artists – Peter Herresthal, Tim Weiss, James Gaffigan, Arctic Philharmonic and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra – and for more on the composer Missy Mazzoli

Published post no.2,174 – Friday 9 May 2024