Music For An Avant-Garde Cruise Ship

Here's a collection of new (or new-ish) pieces of sonic loveliness excerpted from albums now out for you to spend money on, most of it fairly low-key abstract ambient/hypno/drone instrumentals by composers of...what? "Avant garde"? That implies that they are at the forefront and everyone will follow them. Maybe that will happen. Or maybe they're off in their own little universe, too singular and odd to ever influence anyone. "New Music"? Well, that one's just plain silly. Is it still 'new' in a year, or ten, or fifty? Then what do you call it? "Alternative classical"? I like this one, since most of these folks came out of the musical academy. But when you're composing for a cymbal, or electronics, or microtonal guitars, or junk percussion (as all the folks featured today do) it hardly sounds very 'classical.'  We'll probably never settle this one, so let's just listen to some beautiful music, shall we?

Music For An Avant-Garde Cruise Ship

(Due to circumstances beyond my control, I can't use mediafire now.  After clicking the above link, scroll down for a choice of downloading options. You may have to wait a few secs.  We apologize for the inconvenience.)

1-2. Eleanor Hovda: "Centerflow/Trail II," and "Coastal Traces Tidepools 2." This 4-disk set (sold for the price of a 2-disker) is a revelation. The late Ms. Hovda wrote music that puzzled me at first - it's sometimes glacially paced, with long silences. The music doesn't seem "composed' as much as something that just naturally drifts along. I kept expecting ambient, drone, minimalism or chamber music - it is all and none of those. The first piece is for bowed cymbals, the second finds Hovda playing "piano innards." Not included here because it's 30 minutes long is an improvised piece played inside an enormous empty underground town water tank. My most listened-to album of the year so far, even at 4 disks.

.

3. Philip Blackburn: "Ghostly Psalms: Scratch I Ching" - Blackburn is the man behind Innova Records, from whence many of these tracks come. Like Hovda, he's an American Midwesterner (yah, hey dere!), which he salutes on "Duluth Harbor Serenade," scored for actual Minnesota harbor boats, and landlubbers, recorded in the field. Or rather, on the shore of the harbor. That's a pretty neat trick, but the centerpiece of the album is "Ghostly Psalms," inspired by old ruined monasteries, and scored for all manner of unusual soundmakers, including, on this track, something called the 'human rhythmicon."

.

4. Oscar Bettison: "Junk" - Wake up!  Amidst all these haunted atmospherics, here's a rocker.  I just saw this guy at Disney Hall, for the premier of a new piece of his that uses junk "found" percussion instruments, performed by the LA Philharmonic New Music group. Hasn't been recorded yet, but here's one from a few years ago by this Brit (now in the US) that also skillfully combines things like coffee cups, metal bars and wrenches with traditional instruments. Kinda long, so you may wanna skip to last third or so if you're pressed for time - it builds up to a fairly explosive finale.

.

5. Andy Akiho: "Karakurenai (Crimson)" - This debut by a Japanese-American writing for Caribbean steel drum touches on jazz, classical, and avant-garde - everything but calypso.  Effortlessly enjoyable. I guess it's just not possible to make "difficult music" on happy, sunny steel drums. If any experimental music could get play on cruise ships, this would be it. Album: "No One to Know One"

6. Christopher Campbell: "Sleepless Nights" - Like Eleanor Hovda's music, this album unpredictably wanders around with no particular direction.  Unlike Hovda, Campbell's debut doesn't feature long drones and silences, but a kaleidescope of colorful sounds, including, on one of the 'Interludes,' a minute-and-a-half field recording of birds.  This is the most 'song-y' track, a thoroughly eccentric mix of fake old-timey gospel, accordion waltzes, and abstract sounds. Album: "Sound the All-Clear"

.

7. Neil Haverstick: "The Spider" - Sometimes I think the old 7 tone "do re mi" Western scale is exhausted and music really needs to get into microtonal scales. However, when I  listen to contemporary microtonal music, I realize that the composers are not doing much to make it very accessible, hence keeping it in the tiny experimental music ghetto. (Sure, I like it, but I would, wouldn't I?)  But some of guitarist Haverstick's stuff is so cool I don't see how anyone could find it too objectionable - I mean, this piece is inspired by old sci-fi movies, and who can't get behind that?

8. Id Loom: "Sublation" - Mysterious ambient project apparently years in the making and only now coming to light. This track starts off with dense, rolling clouds of sound that part to reveal almost Gregorian-like singers. Strange and wonderul.  From the free download album "To: Atlantis."

9. David Lang / Sentieri Selvaggi: "Sweet Air (excerpt)"-  Lang's from acclaimed New York radicals Bang On A Can; Sentieri Selvaggi are the Italian group performing this lovely bit of minimalism for flute, clarinet, piano, violin and cello.  Sweet, indeed. Album: "Child."