Kronos Quartet :: S&D

ok, when I was a senior in High School I got this Nonesuch sampler CD because it had John Zorn on it(I'd been turned onto Zorn by some dude) and that CD introduced me to so much stuff, made me want to be a "new music" composer and go to Oberlin. That didn't last, but whatever. Anyway, 2 things on that CD that I remember loving, I want people to tell me if they're actually good, because I haven't heard them in close to 9 years.

One was Kronos Quartet performing Kevin Volans' White Man Sleeps.

The other was called John Somebody by Scott Johnson.

yes, it's great. I saw them performing it with him once, playing behind a screen on which the film was being projected. Sometimes they were lit in such a way that you could see them as spectral presences. RoXoR.

although I don't find Crumb's Black Angels meaningless, either musically or programmatically. and I think it's the best overall Kronos album, I like most of the other pieces on it as well, the Istvan Marta piece & their Ives arrangement...

I don't get much out of any of Riley's pieces for Kronos but that's just taste, I know many people think those are his best.

The Kronos Performs Philip Glass quartets album is pleasant bookstore music, but as noted upthread, it is all about the original Mishima soundtrack (if I had to reduce my Glass collection to three records it'd be this, Einstein and North Star)

I find many of their thematic compilation albums to be a bit stifling & calculated, but they're not catering to fringe listeners, they are trying to introduce new music to the widest possible audience and I think they do a wonderful job.

following that lead, another store, the Downtown Music Gallery, claims to have a bunch of copies of the Jon Gibson LP on Chatham Square for like 14 bucks.

there are two -- Visitations is a murky environmental sound + flute collage, almost industrial strength lo-fi, like it but don't listen to it too much. Two Solo Pieces has "Cycles" for wall-of-sound solo organ, and is religious, and easily worth 14 bucks.

I say buy two

(We need a thread for the arditti quartet if there isn't one)

(I realize it hasn't gone completely unnoticed, and it is even a Grammy nominee, but even the absence of discussion around here is curious.)

(I like the Mysore Nagamani Srinath recording Sundar sent though. Carnatic classical, which seems to be my the broad sub-area of Indian music I find most accessible.)

Joan Jeanrenaud is doing a record release show tomorrow night -- are such things special enough to make a weeknight effort to see?

Anyone heard them play Reich's 9/11?

lol @ hstencil upthread

Aleksandra Vrebalov's "…hold me, neighbor, in this storm…" & Nicole Lizée "Death to Kosmische" were amazing.
40 year anniversary this year, wonder if Nonesuch or someone will do anything?

Saw 'em in a collaborative project with Laurie Anderson recently

Saw 'em in a collaborative project with Laurie Anderson recently

How was it? I'm seeing it in May.

I was kinda disappointed tbh. Laurie's verbiage did not really impress me, and Kronos' playing was ok but not wow-worthy.

Just saw Kronos with Malian group Trio de Kali, and it was a great show (their first public show together). I liked Kronos better live than I did a year ago. They did 2 compositions themselves first-- a short impressive kinda noisy one and then a longer one that was dedicated to their friends in Ukraine. After the intermission they were joined by Trio de Kali- a great southern Mali female vocalist; a Malian balafon player, and a Malian bass ngoni player. They adapted Malian tradionals plus a Mahalia Jackson song. All very nice.

I like the song just released that will be on their new album Placeless that features vocals from Iranian singer Mahsa Vahdat and her sister Marjan

https://youtu.be/TK2sHz8Rs5k

They've also been doing "Music from Banned Countries" shows with compositions from some of the original countries on trump's banned list--Yemen, Syria, Iran