ALBUM REVIEW: Tower Music by Joseph Bertolozzi

Posted on May 9, 2016 by maestrobeats

Though it was originally constructed as an entrance to the 1889 World’s Fair, the Eiffel Tower quickly became a cultural icon. To this day, it is an architectural marvel, a historical monument, a work of art, and—a musical instrument? According to composer and organist Joseph Bertolozzi, yes. Yes it is.

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photo credit: Blue Wings Press

Bertolozzi recently released Tower Music, a new album entirely composed and performed using only the sounds of the Eiffel Tower itself. That’s right: melodies, harmonies, foreground, background, contrast, color, counterpoint—and all using only the Eiffel Tower as an instrument. No effects, no amplification, and no electronic processing.

How did Bertolozzi do it? Well, first he raised $40,000 from private donors and convinced the Eiffel Tower administration that he was a legitimate musician. Lucky for him, Paris has a long history of investing in contemporary music—the city is actually home to Pierre Boulez’s Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique, a one-of-a-kind research institute devoted to the study of avant-garde music and sound exploration.

But back to the Eiffel Tower: Bertolozzi and his team recorded over 10,000 samples from the Tower’s various surfaces. They then catalogued the samples by tone and location, whittled the collection down to a mere 2,800 sound samples, and assembled them into a virtual instrument from which Bertolozzi’s vision could be turned into sound. Sound ambitious? It was.

But of course, Bertolozzi is no newbie to public sound-art installations. In 2007 he released an album titled Bridge Music, comprised entirely of sounds created from New York’s Mid-Hudson Bridge. The album quickly entered the Billboard Classical Crossover Music Chart—so for Bertolozzi, playing the Eiffel Tower was just the logical next step.

The album begins with “A Thousand Feet of Sound,” a five-minute overture exploring the Tower’s entire aural array—layering earthy, thumping basslines with the lightning-fast, tinny clinking of the Tower’s fences and panels. “The Harp That Pierced the Sky” employs quite a different sonic palette, enveloping the listener in an intimate sound world of sparse musical textures, metallic echoes, soft percussive melodies, and plenty of silence.

The next piece on the album draws not just from the Tower’s aural fabric, but also from its historical influence. At the 1889 World’s Fair, Indonesian musicians introduced the Javanese gamelan to Europe, profoundly influencing Western music (and in particular, Parisian composers like Debussy and Ravel). Bertolozzi’s “Continuum” pays tribute to this profound moment in music history, combining exotic gamelan motifs with contemporary post-minimalist gestures to meld the ancient music of Indonesia with the music of the modern age.

Bertolozzi’s “Prelude” and “Ironworks” weave together Afro-Carribbean musical influences with circling melodies and industrial-strength rhythmic cadences, while “The Elephant on the Tower” features a gentle, lilting waltz inspired by the oldest elephant in the world, who ascended to the first level of the Tower in 1948 with the Bouglione Circus.

But the album is not just about the history of the Tower, it’s also about the present and the future. “Glass Floor Rhythms” takes its inspiration from the varying rhythms and patterns of visitors to the Eiffel Tower’s glass floor, which was installed in just 2014, and “Evening Harmonies” takes an avant-garde, introspective look at Tower’s sounds themselves, unshackled by any of Western music’s melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic expectations.

The title track brings Bertolozzi’s magnum opus to a close with a (literal) bang, featuring a bold and bass-heavy eruption of industrial melodies and fearlessly dynamic, muscular rhythmic themes. And to top it all off, at the end of the album Bertolozzi includes an audio tour of the Tower to help you locate the different tones, timbres, and musical textures used throughout.

Because after all, everyone knows what the Eiffel Tower looks like—but for the first time in over a century, now we are able to hear it.

ALBUM REVIEW: Balter/Saunier by Deerhoof and Ensemble Dal Niente

Posted on May 2, 2016 by maestrobeats

by Jill Kimball

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We live in a world where musical groups of every genre often craft signature sounds in order to make themselves more marketable. That’s all well and good for those who find one band’s sound and fall in love with it. But for those of us who prefer unpredictable music, it gets monotonous.

If you fall into the latter group, you probably appreciate the rare but always exciting cross-genre partnership—that glorious moment when two musical groups from different realms team up and produce something truly original. Sometimes it happens with Sufjan Stevens and yMusic. Other times, genres cross within the same family, as has happened with classical pianist Jeffrey Kahane and his more indie-inclined son, Gabriel.

This time around, the collaboration is a jointly-produced full album by the Chicago-based chamber collective Ensemble Dal Niente and the San Francisco avant-rock band Deerhoof. The two groups had an unlikely meeting in 2012 and found common musical ground immediately…so together they set to work on a recording project with Brazilian-American composer Marcos Balter. The result is an album that is by turns ambient and avant-garde, rocking and bebop-ing, lilting and crazed…in a good way.

Deerhoof.

The centerpiece of the album is Balter’s “MeltDown Upshot,” an incredible mashup of musical genres from across the globe. In other hands, this piece might sound overwhelming, but Deerhoof and Dal Niente are just chill enough to make it work.

The first two movements of “MeltDown Upshot” could be classified as ambient, but don’t mistake the word “ambient” for “boring.” The dreamy opening, “Credo,” spills seamlessly into “Parallel Spaces,” still floaty but with a tinge of sinister foreshadowing. “Ready,” with its frenetic Chick Corea-like jazziness, erratic meter and hazy lyrics (“I dream of sound in color / I dream of light in sounds”) is a sonic outlier in this piece and seems to represent the meltdown at its manic climax. A more organized mania comes in “True-False,” a fast-paced, string-plucking homage to Philip Glass-style repetition. The piece calms down again with “Home,” a delightfully indie take on João Gilberto’s Brazilian bossa nova. The last two movements take us back to the strange, dreamy vibes of the beginning. The sixth movement, “Cherubim,” is the clear highlight of the piece, somehow gathering all of Balter’s jazz, pop, rock and avant-garde influences together into three minutes of pure indie-rock bliss. With its driving percussion, earnest and unpolished vocals and wholly unique instrumentation, I have no doubt university radio hosts all over the country will be clamoring to get their hands on the single.

Ensemble Dal Niente.

Balter’s other piece on the album, “Pois Que Nada Que Dure, Ou Que Durando,” is set to text by Ricardo Reis (one of the many pseudonyms of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa). It’s a simultaneously gloomy and carefree ode to the transience of life, a proclamation that it’s worthless to focus on the uncertain future and much better to live in the moment. In this piece, we’re transported back to the creepy ambience that bookends “MeltDown Upshot” with despondent, ghostly vocals and minimal instrumentation.

The album closes with a 20-minute suite called “Deerhoof Chamber Variations” by the band’s drummer, Greg Saunier. It seems to pull together a few elements of Balter’s major piece—there are some repeated pizzicato sections and moments of sinister dissonance—while also referencing melodic themes from Deerhoof’s more well-known songs. It’s really fun to hear their music reworked with harp, brass and strings; it lends the music a whole different, albeit mellower and more ethereal than usual, edge.

It’s such a treat to hear two very different musical groups jam together and take rare sonic risks. Based on the quality and depth of the music heard on Balter/Saunier, I don’t think this will be the last we hear of the Deerhoof/Dal Niente collective.

ALBUM REVIEW: Utah Symphony’s “Dawn to Dust”

Posted on April 25, 2016 by maestrobeats

by Geoffrey Larson

It’s always tremendously exciting when we get a premiere recording of American works for orchestra, but this release has me especially enthralled. Utah Symphony and Thierry Fischer present an immaculately conceived performance of works by three of our most prominent composers of the moment: Augusta Read Thomas, Nico Muhly, and Andrew Norman.

Augusta Read Thomas’ Eos is subtitled Goddess of the Dawn, a Ballet for Orchestra, and presents a tableau of Greek gods and goddesses. It’s interesting to note her remarks in the liner notes, where she mentions her compositional process involves standing at a drafting table to connect with the feel of dance. The opening movement Dawn is immediately spellbinding. It subtly evokes Copland’s Quiet City at the outset, with its spare textures and timid groups of repeating notes, eschewing the richness of Ravel’s Dawn from Daphnis and Chloe. It doesn’t last long, however, as we are soon taken on a playful journey that is a true concerto for orchestra. Utah Symphony really wows in Augusta’s music: the way challenging runs pass through the entire orchestra with perfect precision and ensemble is truly something for the ears to behold, and the Soundmirror recording team has produced a wonderfully balanced and transparent capture of the performance for Reference Recordings.

Nico Muhly’s Control is also helpfully subtitled, and the Five Landscapes for Orchestra that he explores are all impressionistic representations of Utah’s stunning natural landscape. He mentions oblique references to Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles, and I actually hear a lot of Messiaen in this music, from commanding brass chords that stand like massive pillars of rock to gamelan-like rhythms of pitched percussion. It’s a fascinating work, such a far evolution from Muhly’s earlier minimalist-influenced textures, although this DNA partially forms the rhythmic backbone of Beehive. It’s interesting that the fourth part, Petroglyph and Tobacco, reminds me of Copland’s most muscular, swashbuckling populist works; it’s portraying stone-carving, rock-painting, and a Ute song that was used when begging for tobacco, a distinctly different viewpoint than Copland’s American West.

Andrew Norman’s Switch is a percussion concerto that seems to follow in a creative line from Play, his earlier work that “explores the myriad ways musicians can play with, against, or apart from one another.” In this work, the percussionist appears to control the action of the orchestra like an insane puppeteer, which certain percussion instruments setting off licks one part of the orchestra, and so on. It never ceases to surprise, enthrall, or sound less than tremendously difficult. It’s an incredibly symphonic work that seems to be successful in a purely shock-and-awe way, a work that clearly says “look what a modern orchestra is capable of.” Haydn would have been terrified.

ALBUM REVIEW: Michael Mizrahi’s “Currents”

Posted on April 11, 2016 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

Mizrahi-Hi-Res-10_o Classical music is fluid. Try as we might, we can never pin down a definitive “beginning” or “end” to the arbitrary musical eras we’ve created. And while we may broadly categorize music as Baroque or Classical, Romantic or Modern, ultimately all of these seemingly individualized movements blend into a much broader pool: the Western classical music tradition.

But this pool is not static—it continues to change and evolve as composers and performers continue to make waves in the contemporary music world.

That’s the premise behind pianist Michael Mizrahi’s new album of solo piano works, “Currents.” Recently released on the New Amsterdam record label, the album brings together six impeccably performed and expertly recorded new American piano works, almost all of which were written specifically for Mizrahi’s idiosyncratic sound, style, and musical approach.

The result is a unique addition to the 21^st century solo piano repertoire that, as the title suggests, embodies movement forward, building on the great piano works of the past while also expanding and propelling the solo piano works of the future. The album features works by Sarah Kirkland Snider, Troy Herion, Mark Dancigers, Asha Srinivasan, Missy Mazzoli, and Patrick Burke.

The album begins with the title track: “The Currents” by Sarah Kirkland Snider. Perhaps best known for her song cycles (which feature the inimitable voices of Shara Worden and Padma Newsome), this solo piano piece carries the same flowing lyricism and sensitivity as Snider’s vocal music—but without any of the words. Mizrahi’s fingers swim gracefully through the ebb and flow of the piece, beautifully capturing the depth and breadth of colors that make the currents come to life.

The piece is followed by Troy Herion’s pseudo-Baroque solo piano work, cheekily titled “Harpsichords.” Heavily peppered with trills and musical ornaments, the piece evokes the pristine, transparent textures of the Baroque era while venturing into 21^st century melodies and musical forms (or, you know, lack thereof). Mizrahi blends both eras seamlessly.

The slow-moving and sincere “Bright Motion Ascending” is nothing short of sparkling. The work was composed for Mizrahi by his NOW Ensemble bandmate, guitarist Mark Dancigers, as the third installment in his “Bright Motion” trilogy. Mizrahi’s fast fingers transform the piano into a harp, his fingertips gliding effortlessly across cascading arpeggios, from the glistening upper registers of the piano all the way down to its earthiest tones.

Asha Srinivasan’s introspective “Mercurial Reveries” draws upon her Indian-American heritage, weaving in elements from Indian classical scales and modes, along with the occasional (and ever so subtle) jazz piano lick. Over the course of five short movements, she explores a vast terrain of distinctive musical textures, at one point even instructing the pianist to physically reach inside the piano and stop the strings’ vibrations with one hand while playing on the keys with the other. Mizrahi, as it turns out, plays the inside of the piano with the same precision and grace as the outside.

The work is followed by Missy Mazzoli’s “Heartbreaker,” an intimate piece which showcases Mizrahi’s virtuosity without bleeding over into the showy (and at times superficial) pitfall of many virtuosic solo piano pieces. The piece starts out deceptively simple, but quickly spirals into freewheeling abandon, dancing just within the limits of the pianist’s control.

The album comes to a close with Patrick Burke’s poignant and pensive “Missing Piece.” Mizrahi’s fingers pace across slow-moving triadic harmonies and yearning dissonances, uncovering the work’s clear Romantic underpinnings.

Ultimately, each piece on the album reminds us that there is no clear line between the music of the past and the music of the present. We don’t always have to separate the music into arbitrary categories—sometimes we just need to sit back, relax, and get swept up in the “Currents.”

ALBUM REVIEW: Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” Symphonic featuring Alice Cooper with the London Orion Orchestra

Posted on March 21, 2016 by maestrobeats

by Rachele Hales

Wish You Were Here Symphonic is a project produced and masterminded by Pete Smith, who also helped produce the wildly successful Us and Them: Symphonic Pink Floyd. He’s joined this time by some friends and fellow Floydians. Makes sense. After all, it was Pink Floyd who pioneered the idea of inviting well-known musicians to make guest appearances on their albums (including Yehudi Menuhin and Roy Harper). Smith collected collaborators from around the world, including New Zealand’s maestro Peter Scholes, who arranged the music and conducted the recording.

Oddly, the album opens with a non-symphonic version of the title track with macabre vocals from Alice Cooper. Neither the vocal nor the instrumental versions of “Wish You Were Here” are symphonic, which is a damn shame considering the highlight of the album is the symphonic orchestration.

The brief orchestra warm-up following the title track is a nice touch, however. It serves to prepare your ears for the shift in tone as the guitar and piano are joined by a full symphony playing the instantly recognizable opening to “Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Pt. I-V.” The bare, industrial ambience of the original is in every way enhanced by the ethereal orchestration, which delivers the melody that the vocals supply in the original.

Alice Cooper returns in “Welcome to the Machine,” a bleak critique of the music industry and said industry’s corporate fatcats. Cooper’s style works better here in conveying a feeling of utter disaffection.

The London Orion Orchestra takes on “Have a Cigar” and we’re again treated to exhilarating symphonic arrangements with top-notch electric guitar work that gradually ascends in prominence.

Keeping things in their original album order, “Have A Cigar” fades out and an instrumental version of “Wish You Were Here” performed by Australian Pink Floyd begins. Kudos to Aussie Floyd for beautifully conveying the tenderness and melancholy of the original version. That said, after the lush symphonic thrills of the previous songs I found I missed that sweep and scale here.

After the second half of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” we get a little bonus song: a symphonic version of Dark Side of the Moon’s final track “Eclipse.”

I cannot write about this album without also mentioning the artwork. The iconic artwork in Pink Floyd’s 1975 release depicts two men in suits shaking hands (the handshake symbolizing empty gestures), while one man is on fire, literally “getting burned.” All this was meant to convey Pink Floyd’s musical critique of the music industry and a general feeling of absence. Tiernen Trevallion’s take on the artwork for this symphonic album conveys a similar vacuity and disgust but it is so much cooler! Replacing business suits with space suits? Smart. Taking lyrics from the title track and incorporating them into the artwork? Smart. The symbolism of a pig with a duct-taped butt gorging on a trough of money? Smart and funny! Trevallion just became my new favorite graphic artist.

Wish You Were Here Symphonic Back Cover

Getting back to the music… Fans of Pink Floyd will definitely enjoy the musical fantasia of Wish You Were Here Symphonic. Those who are less familiar with Pink Floyd will also find a lot to love in this recording. You listen to this album for the symphonic arrangements and in every way they deliver.

This was Smith’s first go at producing an album by himself and I’d call it a great success. I hope to hear symphonic versions of Pink Floyd’s other classics in the future. Hint hint, Pete Smith. Tell us, where will you go from Here?

Wish You Were Here Symphonic Art Print