drumkit quartets

Second Inversion hosts share a favorite selection from their playlist. Tune in during the indicated hours below on Friday, February 3 to hear these pieces. In the meantime, you’ll hear other great new and unusual music from all corners of the classical genre 24/7!

Glenn Kotche: Drumket Quartet No.51; So Percussion (Cantaloupe Music)

A few weeks ago, I decided to take a nice urban hike on a gorgeous, clear, sunny day here in Seattle. I didn’t feel like wasting any of that time in a car driving to a trail head, so I stayed local and used the power of my legs to circumvent Lake Union – a healthy handful of miles. I put my iPhone on shuffle and this piece came on in the mix. To me, it definitely has the tinkling sound of rain – which was no where in sight – but nonetheless set a perfect soundtrack for my walk. I enjoyed this piece so much that I put it on repeat and listened to it 3 times in a row because it’s just that good – Maggie Stapleton

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 11am hour today to hear this piece.

James Taylor: You Can Close Your Eyes (arr. Philip Lawson); The King’s Singers (Signum Classics)

James Taylor offered the world a peak into the gray area of a relationship when he wrote “You Can Close Your Eyes.” The couple is stuck somewhere between a love ballad and a blues song as they remain in love but see the end edging nearer. It’s a tricky tone for one man to negotiate, so how do the six men of The King’s Singers sound in their arrangement of this song? Precise & layered with tight harmonies; it’s like a beautiful song woke up one morning and decided to put on its best crisp suit. – Rachele Hales

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 12pm hour today to hear this piece.

Philip Glass: Piano Étude No. 10; Bruce Levingston, piano (Sono Luminus)

Composed over the course of two decades, Philip Glass’s 20 Piano Études offer a fascinating retrospective of his musical progression—a rare chance to see his style grow and change through one single, controlled variable: the piano étude.

Pianist Bruce Levingston presents one in the exact middle: the dense and relentless No. 10. A friend and frequent collaborator of Glass, Levingston is quite at home amidst the cyclical harmonies and motoric rhythms, his fingers dancing nimbly through a kaleidoscopic soundscape of restless and repetitious motives. Suffice it to say: Glass’s Étude No. 10 is in very good hands. – Maggie Molloy

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 5pm hour today to hear this piece.

Charles Wuorinen: Big Spinoff; Alarm Will Sound

Charles Wuorinen’s Spinoff for violin, bass, and bongos of 1983 was a sort of ode to the harsh music of New York City: imagine if a violinist and bassist were having a chamber music rehearsal, and the sounds of their jamming wafted out the apartment window and mingled with the percussive physical sound of the city. Big Spinoff is essentially a spinoff of Spinoff, with a small chamber orchestra joining the musical fray. We get a lot of short, unison licks that propel the music forward and seem to capture the spirit of a chamber music rehearsal, which for some groups is more chaotic than others. At least Alarm Will Sound seems to be having a good time, and it’s a fun listen as well. I especially love the rapid-fire shifts of loud and soft music, an exciting contrast that is punctuated with toms and pounding piano. – Geoffrey Larson

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 5pm hour today to hear this piece.

by Maggie Molloy

Glenn Kotche. Photo by Zoltan Orlic

Every rock ‘n’ roll fan loves a good drum solo—but for some percussionists, one drumkit simply isn’t enough. Enter Glenn Kotche, composer, percussionist, and rock drummer extraordinaire.

Best known as the drummer in the alt-rock band Wilco, Kotche is a Grammy award-winning artist with a colorful palette of collaborators. Over the past 20 years, he’s worked with artists as diverse as Andrew Bird, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Phil Selway (of Radiohead), the Kronos Quartet, eighth blackbird, and John Luther Adams. His latest collaborators, though, take contemporary percussion to the next level.

Sō Percussion is an experimental percussion quartet dedicated to creating and performing collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and unapologetically contemporary musical works. Comprised of percussionists Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting, Sō Percussion can make music out of just about anything.

So Percussion. Photo by LiveWellPhoto.

Whether they’re playing quijadas and conch shells for a John Cage piece, crotales and timbales for a Paul Lansky commission, or even just blocks of wood with strings for a Bryce Dessner work, Sō Percussion’s wide-ranging repertoire stretches from the “classics” of the 20^th century up through most innovative new works drummed up just last week.

So it should come as no surprise that Sō Percussion wanted to get their hands on some Kotche originals. Thus, “The Drumkit Quartets” were born.

“I originally conceived of writing a suite of drumkit quartets after finishing a string of commissions and projects for mixed instrumentation,” Kotche said. “I wanted to write without any concern for tonality and really just explore new possibilities for my primary instrument—the drumkit—in an ensemble setting.”

“The Drumkit Quartets” came about while Kotche was touring with his band—he decided to write a quartet in each city he visited, inspired by the sounds and spirits of that specific place.

“These ideas ranged from conceptual blueprints to fully realized and notated pieces,” Kotche said. “Many were conceived but not finished, and when Sō Percussion approached me, I thought these would be a nice addition to their repertoire and would be a perfect fit for their personalities.”

But Kotche didn’t just limit himself to the drumkit—or even four drumkits, for that matter; the quartets actually include percussion instruments as varied as marimbas, triangles, hi-hats, and hand-crank sirens.

“Since I’ve learned to trust the music when it deviates from a preconceived plan, I didn’t resist leaving drumkits out of some of ‘The Drumkit Quartets,’” Kotche said.

The album begins with “Drumkit Quartet No. 51,” inspired by Kotche’s travels in Toyko, Brisbane, and Berlin. Minimalist melodies drip like raindrops through the static tonalities, directing the focus toward the uncoiling rhythmic cycles. Across the 10-minute work, the musical texture slowly shifts and expands to include backing sound collages comprised of field recordings from Kotche’s travels. An accompanying haiku recited by Yuka Honda adds a stark contrast to the immersive musical textures.

The group then backtracks to “Drumkit Quartet No. 1,” a short work with more of the traditional, aggressive arena rock feel. The three-movement “Drumkit Quartet No. 3,” by contrast, is orchestrated entirely on metallic instruments, exploring a number of diverse melodic timbres ranging from dry cymbal work to more resonant pitched percussion.

“Drumkit Quartet No. 6” is another exploratory piece in which Kotche breaks down the drum kit to focus on the individual voices (such as the bass drum, tom-toms, cymbals, and snare). The result is a 5-minute work which showcases the personalities and expressive qualities of each part of the kit and highlights how the individual voices converse and interact to create a unified sound.

“The four members of the group serve as a model of how four limbs operate both independently yet in concert when playing the drumkit,” Kotche said of his inspiration for the piece.

“Drumkit Quartet No. 50” takes another decisive turn: it is actually completely free of physical drumming, instead focusing on the wide-ranging timbral and textural aspects of the instrument. Kotche heavily features his own customized implements and preparations for drumkit, including hand-crank sirens and jingly, jangly metallic elements. Written in collaboration with Sō Percussion, the piece is a malleable music collage exploring the relationship between the performer, the performance space, and the audience.

The group gets into a somewhat more traditional percussive groove with “Drumkit Quartet No. 54,” a work inspired by field recordings Kotche made in Vienna. The piece examines the traditional rock beat in a very propulsive, powerful, and surprisingly danceable 4-minute rhythmic mashup.

The album ends with another rendition of “Drum Quartet No. 51”: this one a Chicago realization of the original. Denser background recordings and more daring musical textures highlight the delicate marimba melodies, and the entire work echoes with an ethereal shimmer.

But whether performing dry and precise percussive melodies or richly textured marimba motives, throughout the album Sō Percussion doesn’t miss a beat. The group brings power, precision, personality, and innovation to whatever they set their drumsticks to.

The album is over too soon, but hopefully this won’t be the last collaboration between Kotche and Sō Percussion—because these five guys are on a roll.

EXTRA BONUS FEATURES!

So Percussion was in Seattle for a residency with the UW World Series and the UW School of music last month. We presented their performance at Meany Hall as a live broadcast and welcomed them into our studios for a video session. Here are the fruits of those endeavors!