Sounds of Time & Distance
Alfredo Santa Ana
Independent (alfredosantaana.ca) 

Born in Mexico City and working in Vancouver since 2003, composer/guitarist Alfredo Santa Ana draws on his experiences composing for television, film, dance, instrumentalists and orchestras in his self-described “hybrid” nine-track album for guitar, electronics and flute combinations.

Santa Ana does everything here with successful finesse, from performing, composing, recording, mixing, mastering and producing. Opening track Under an Orange Sky (2017), originally commissioned for 18 musicians, is a guitar duet here, performed with Michael Ibsen. Santa Ana’s musical depiction of the horrific BC fires and subsequent long periods of orange skies opens with exciting fast lines and accented single notes, followed by suspenseful longer lower-pitch held tones and occasional dissonances, and repeated midsection minimalistic lines with slower quieter sounds adding a reflective touch. More virtuosic well-thought-out guitar performances by Made in Canada Duo as Ibsen & Nathan Bredeson play Santa Ana’s interesting Foundation Visit High Scatter (2022) uninterrupted changing sound environments from slow strums to pitch slides to punchy rhythmic sections. Wave Remote (2022), performed by McGregor-Verdejo Duo, has flutist Mark Takeshi McGregor and guitarist Adrian Verdejo use loopers and electric guitar pedal technology to at times play above themselves in almost quasi rock and contemporary music improvisations. Steve Reich’s three track Electric Counterpoint (1987) receives a meticulous respectful performance by Santa Ana.

The musical world of guitar explodes with unexpected new sounds, flavours and effects in this fantastic release.

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Tim Brady – Symphony in 18 Parts
Tim Brady
Starkland ST-237 (timbrady.ca) 

One point that is often made about the electric guitar is that unlike the piano (Hanon Studies), the trumpet (Arban Method), or even its acoustic brethren (Complete Carcassi Classical Guitar Method), it does not have an established pedagogy of praxis. As such, and almost since its conception when Les Paul affixed a homemade tremolo and pickups to a pine log, the progenitors of blues, rock, jazz, funk, R & B etc. have thwarted the normative principles of the instrument in order to find a creative voice through bent strings, squelching feedback or one-hand legato fret-board tapping. Simply put, the pedagogy of the electric guitar is largely a performance practice of figuring things out on the instrument that were not intended for that instrument. And yet even within this instrumental history filled with novel approaches to the guitar, the adjective “ambitious” does not fully capture the eclectic range of creativity that, for over 35 years, has remained a hallmark of guitarist Tim Brady’s expansive output. 

Spanning genres, aggregation size and influence (from Norman Bethune to Charlie Christian!), Brady’s sprawling creativity is once again at the forefront on his most recent Symphony in 18 Parts for solo electric guitar. Take, for example, the album’s opening track, minor révolutions, as a stylistic explanation of Brady’s approach in miniature. Within this one three-minute tune, Brady alternates between “nails-on-a-chalkboard” distortion with a no less technologically mediated crystalline atmospheric timbre, putting these two sonically disparate approaches into conversation with one another while traversing rock, jazz, classic and “contemporary” music. Lots to like here for fans of “new” Canadian music, genre-bending sounds and, of course, the electric guitar.

Christopher Butterfield – Souvenir
Aventa Ensemble; Rick Sacks; Bill Linwood
Redshift Records TK538 (redshiftrecords.org) 

“Forget the gold watch,” read the University of Victoria’s press release, “noted composer and longtime School of Music professor Christopher Butterfield is marking his UVic retirement with the release of his latest album, Souvenir.” Each piece was commissioned by a different ensemble over a 20-year span. “It’s like I’m doing my own musicology here,” kibitzed the composer. The four Butterfield compositions on the album are spiritedly performed by BC’s Aventa Ensemble. Toronto percussion soloist Rick Sacks makes a virtuoso guest appearance. 

The works are as much permeated by the composer’s sure feel for classical musical architecture, 20th-century music idioms (turned sideways), colourful orchestration, quirky drama and textural variety, as they are by his off-centre, surrealistic sense of humour. For example, along with the 15-piece Aventa Ensemble, Souvenir also includes a “set of improvisations with undependable electronics,” while a field recording of Barbadian tree frogs chirps away in oblique counterpoint. Parc (2013) on the other hand, “tries hard to maintain some kind of organizational order but keeps falling off the rails.” In addition to the vibraphone solo, this percussion concerto also features a solo section for an unorthodox, organic instrument: pieces of wood.

Referring to Victoria BC’s rich musical and cultural environment, Butterfield notes it has “a reputation for composers who are looked at as rather remarkable… and nobody’s quite sure why. Is it something in the water? Is it island life?” Perhaps, the answer can be partly found in Vancouver Island’s geographic isolation, where composers “have to make everything up ourselves,” as in the case of Butterfield’s own uniquely drole musical voice.

Sirventès – Iranian Female Composers Association
Brian Thornton
New Focus Recordings FCR367 (newfocusrecordings.com) 

Sirventès is a collection of new solo and ensemble works from Cleveland Orchestra cellist Brian Thornton and the Iranian Female Composters Association, founded in 2017 and dedicated to supporting female composers from Iran through programming, commissioning and mentorship. The album, beautiful, warm and compelling, focuses on composers telling their own stories in their own voices, providing a perfect showcase for the six featured women, each accomplished and successful in her own right.

Beginning with a four-part work written for string quartet in 2017 by Tehran-born Mahdis Golzar Kashani, And the Moses Drowned is “Dedicated to Aylan Kurdi and all innocent children fallen victim to the war.” This is a beautifully descriptive work, the plaintive opening reminiscent of Arvo Pärt but quickly intensifying in modes, metres and melody. 

Nina Barzegar’s solo cello work Vulnerable is a delicate balance, expressed by the composer as, “By being vulnerable, I do not mean being in a position where one can be hurt easily. Instead, I mean experiencing great human emotions: feeling shame, sorrow, gladness, love, belonging, empathy, and embracing who we truly are….” 

Nasim Khorassani’s Growth for string trio (2017) focuses on a cell constructed by B, C, D and E flat, a deeply concentrated emotional journey that both moves and stays stagnant, almost as if describing the constraints under which it was composed. Niloufar Iravani’s 2017 string quartet The Maze is in three parts depicting the struggle to navigate emotions. 

A favourite is the title track by Anahita Abbasi, featuring Toronto’s Amahl Arulanandam, cello and Nathan Petitpas, percussion. The writing for both instruments calls back and forth between pitched and unpitched, responding without leadership but more as balanced characters in a story. It is raw, spacious and expressive, a delicate duo between the cello and percussion but also a duet between time and space.

Mina Arissian’s Suite for Cello closes the album and is beautifully played by Thornton, who never muscles in on the composers but remains committed to the most direct translations of these powerful works as possible. Some time with the enclosed information on each of these composers is well spent, getting to know just a few of the brilliant women in the Iranian Female Composers Association.

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Homage: Chamber Music for the African Continent & Diaspora
Castle of Our Skins; Samantha Ege
Lorelt LNT147 (lorelt.co.uk) 

Boston-based Castle of Our Skins (COOS) was founded in 2013 “to address the lack of equity in composer representation on concert stages.” Happily, the past decade has seen dramatically increased attention to Black composers; this CD is an example.

Safika: Three Tales of African Migration (2011) by South African Bongani Ndodana-Breen (b.1975) is performed by pianist Samantha Ege and COOD violinists Gabriela Diaz and Matthew Vera, violist Ashleigh Gordon and cellist Francesca McNeeley. Its three movements offer yearning string melodies and percussive piano “drumming” evoking traditional African song and dance, “memories of lives left behind,” says Ndodana-Breen.

Pianist Ege solos in two works. Homage (1990) by Oklahoma-born Zenobia Powell Perry (1908-2004), based on the spiritual I Been ‘Buked and I Been Scorned, proceeds from childlike simplicity to searching, fragmented discord. Moorish Dance, Op.55 (1904) by Londoner Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912), like others of his supposedly African-inspired compositions, sounds European, here emulating Liszt.

Soweto (1987) for piano trio by Virginian Undine Smith Moore (1904-1989) condemns apartheid in three terse movements featuring dissonant chaos, a melancholy cello solo and a spiritual-inspired dirge. At 23 minutes, Spiritual Fantasy No.12 (1988) for string quartet by Texas-born Frederick C. Tillis (1930-2020) is by far the CD’s longest and, for me, most rewarding work. In four movements, each based on a different spiritual, the music is wonderfully inventive and adventurous – harmonically, rhythmically, texturally and structurally. Where/why has it been hiding, and what of Tillis’ other Spiritual Fantasies?

Carlos Surinach – Acrobats of God; The Owl and the Pussycat
Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Gil Rose
BMOP Sound 1089 (bmop.org/audio-recordings) 

“My music, even the most serious pieces, all suggest, in some way, dance.” After emigrating to New York in 1951, Barcelona-born Carlos Surinach (1915-1997) was commissioned by Martha Graham to create three ballet scores, all presented on this CD.

In the 16-minute Embattled Garden (1957), flamenco-style melodies, rhythms and costumes support a scenario involving Adam, Eve, Lilith and the Devil. Brash, brassy, percussive tuttis are offset by plaintive solos for clarinet, English horn and bassoon in music that’s appropriately steamy, erotic and savage.

Graham called the 22-minute Acrobats of God (1960) “a lighthearted celebration of the art of dance and the discipline of the dancer’s world.” The circus-comedic Fanfare is followed by the first of four Interludes, three of them boisterously brusque, one satirically sentimental. The mock-Arabic Antique Dance spotlights three mandolins and a solo trumpet. Bolero is a halting, ponderous waltz. Flute, mandolins and low brass are spotlighted in Minuet, a parody reminiscent of Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony. Spanish Gallop’s rapid urgency builds to a clamorous climax, then ends gently with a lyrical cello solo, floating flute and hushed string pizzicati.

The Owl and the Pussycat (1978), lasting 22 minutes, is filled with madcap, playfully pompous music, lots of heavy brass and percussion including a clavinet (electronically amplified clavichord). Aliana de la Guardia recites Edward Lear’s nonsensical poem, while conductor Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project animate all three scores to vivid theatrical life, even without their original visual accompaniments.

Danny Elfman – Violin Concerto “Eleven Eleven”; Adolphus Hailstork – Piano Concerto No.1
Sandy Cameron; Stewart Goodyear; Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra; JoAnn Falletta
Naxos 8.559925 (naxos.com/featurePages/Details/?id=Danny_Elfman_Adolphus_Hailstork) 

This significant release juxtaposes two diverse, American composers and also celebrates multiple Grammy-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta and her 125th recording with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. The two artists represented here could not be more diverse – Danny Elfman, known primarily as a film composer with an array of notable contemporary scores as well as creative relationships with brilliant writer/directors such as Tim Burton… and Adolphus Hailstork, who plumbs the depths of his potent African American heritage to manifest works embodying elements of jazz and blues, as well as motifs of indigenous West African musics. 

Lauded violinist Sandy Cameron is the featured performer in Elfman’s four-movement opus, while phenomenal pianist Stewart Goodyear propels Hailstork’s stirring concerto. Elfman’s Violin Concerto “Eleven Eleven” (2017) begins with a movement of stirring beauty, reflected in languid, dynamic bass lines and heart-stopping contrapuntal string work, all embraced in Cameron’s masterful, emotional and facile performance. The subsequent three movements, Spietato, Fantasma and Giocoso; Lacrimae also draw the listener into the miasmatic realm of the fantastic, manifested through the organism of the full orchestra.

Hailstork’s three-movement Piano Concerto No.1 (1992) is magnificently performed by Goodyear. At once delicate and percussive, Hailstork’s writing seems both luminous and yet deeply imbedded in the tangible human experience. His use of brass is incomparable, and although Hailstork and Elfman are two generations apart by birth, the creative output of these two gifted artists is conjoined by American viscera, without becoming static within linear time. The Buffalo Philharmonic continues to thrill as they skillfully move through these difficult pieces, and under the baton of the redoubtable Falletta, the large ensemble moves as one creature – embracing every dynamic, subtlety and nuance.

Room to Breathe
Joseph Swift; Calvin Hu
Independent (swiftbassoon.com/roomtobreathe) 

Given the bassoon’s concise solo repertoire, each recording of new music has the potential to contain a gem that becomes a lasting addition to the canon. Such might be the case with Room to Breathe, featuring American bassoonist Joseph Swift with pianist Calvin Hu. The five young composers on this disc have all created thoughtful, colourful works inspired by the tumult of 2020-2021. 

Swift leads off with Dueling Realities by Chris Evan Hass: well-written in a lyrical, modernist style with nice rhythmic grooves in the outer sections and some beautifully expressive writing in the middle. Gala Flagello’s Mother Time, Father Nature features some extended techniques like inside-piano damping and pitch slides, but the overall effect is lyrical and engaging. Indigo Bunting by Brad Balliett opens with dark, Bartók-like piano chords, the bassoon replying with fistfuls of cascading 16th notes, dealt with expertly by the soloist. At just over 13 minutes, this is the longest piece on the disc, disturbing in its frenetic energy but given ample relief in its more cinematic middle section. I only wish its oddly abrupt ending were more satisfying. Swift by Brian Nabors is written in a rhythmic, modernist style, with hints of Hindemith, perhaps. 

The gem on this disc, for me, is Karalyn Schubring’s i.C.u: an improvisatory, impressionistic duo full of delicate expression. Swift’s playing throughout is articulate and commanding: plenty of technical mastery, with a warm tone and expressive vibrato.

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Chicago Clarinet Classics
John Bruce Yen; Patrick Godon; Teresa Reilly
Cedille CDR 90000 218 (cedillerecords.org) 

Clarinetist John Bruce Yeh is that rare member of the profession: a veteran enthusiast. Having played in one or another capacity as a member of the Chicago Symphony clarinet section since 1977, many of those years as assistant principal, he still found motivation to curate this entertaining and interesting collection of modern to contemporary works for clarinet: with piano, unaccompanied, and in one delightful segment, a duet. All the composers are or were, at one point in their lives, situated in Chicago. 

Best known, most often performed, and possibly the most well-crafted work presented is Time Pieces Op.43 by Robert Muczynski, which is the closing bookend on the disc; the opener is Alexander Tcherepnin’s Sonata in one movement, as obscure as the Muczynski is familiar. The material in between is of varied interest. Pride of place is occupied by neo-Romantic Leo Sowerby’s Sonata for Clarinet and Piano H240a (1938). The piece lasts even longer than the title might suggest. It’s how Healey Willan might have written had he lived in Chicago instead of Toronto. Beautiful, if long-winded. In these three, Patrick Godon works wonders at the piano and has effortless musical rapport with Yeh.

Most interesting are the shorter contemporary works: Phoenix Rising by Stacy Garrop, Spirit by Shulamit Ran, both unaccompanied; and especially The Forgiveness Train for two clarinets by Teresa Reilly. Reilly supplies the other voice in her piece, which when it isn’t busy doing very cool things with bends and microtonal slides could almost be an homage to Francis Poulenc’s youthful duet from a century before; I can’t tell whether Reilly wrote one part for B-flat and the other for A clarinet, as Poulenc did. Her notes in the liner make no mention of the earlier work, so I may be imagining things. Anyway, it’s a confident work from someone who by her own admission received no formal training as a composer.

Shostakovich – Symphonies 12 & 15
BBC Philharmonic; John Storgårds
Chandos CHSA5334 (chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%205334) 

Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 12 “The Year 1917” is dedicated to the memory of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. His intention, as he described it, was to write a symphony depicting the life of Lenin, from youth to member of the new Soviet Society. In the first movement the cellos introduce the distinctive Lenin theme we hear running throughout the symphony in one form or another. Titled Revolutionary Petrograd, it begins with the lowest strings of cello and double bass and evolves into a triumph including tympani and bass drum. Very exciting indeed! The second movement is intended to portray Razliv, Lenin’s “hideout” near St. Petersburg and we hear very sombre music underpinned with a little menace. Typical of Shostakovich. The brief third movement, Aurora, is named after the Russian battle cruiser that began the October Revolution in 1917 by firing a single blank shot at the Winter Palace. The final movement, The Dawn of Humanity, depicting life after the revolution under the guidance of Lenin, its allusions to at least a dozen other well-known works making it a complex puzzle to decipher. As expected, it ends on an exultant note.

The second work is the Symphony No.15 in A Major, Op.141. Written in 1971, in many ways this lighthearted work is his most enjoyable in my opinion. As the old saying goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This final symphony opens with quotes from the theme of The Lone Ranger (from Rossini’s William Tell) which he develops through the rest of the first movement. Many other quotes throughout the work are further orchestrated and developed by Shostakovich making this a most amusing 45 minutes. The BBC Philharmonic is in fine form under the direction of John Storgårds, who is firmly at home in this repertoire. The SACD sound is outstanding.

Bernd Alois Zimmermann – Recomposed
WDR Sinfonieorchester; Heinz Holliger
Wergo WER73872 (amazon.ca/dp/B0BD2CQLGT?ref_=cb_interstitial_us_ca_desktop_unrec_referrer_google_dp_dp) 

In the context of German post-war avant-garde composition, B.A. Zimmermann was an outlier. Rising out of the chaos of the Second World War, there formed in Darmstadt a radical circle of composers who sought a total break with tradition. Zimmermann reflected these influences at times, notably so in his epic opera Die Soldaten, but stubbornly left himself open to a myriad of influences throughout his career. Consequently, he was viewed with considerable suspicion by the aesthetic hard-liners. As Heinz Holliger explains in the superb program notes accompanying these recordings, “Zimmermann had no aesthetic prejudices. This was of course born of necessity, since he had chosen to earn his money as a house composer for WDR [West German Radio], and not as a piano or composition teacher.” Following the reform of the radio network in 1947, he completed approximately 100 arrangements for live broadcasts from Cologne which until now have languished in obscurity. Now at last, his finest examples in this genre are brought back to life, interspersed with selections of his own symphonic music in performances of the highest quality.

Disc One delights with a predominantly Latin disposition, opening with Zimmerman’s major ballet work from the 1950s, Alagoana. The polytonality and overt Brazilian references à la Milhaud also bring to mind the music of Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera’s folkloristic ballets of the 1940s, though Zimmermann’s chromaticism is considerably more advanced. Lavishly orchestrated arrangements of piano pieces by Milhaud, Villa-Lobos and Casella along with Zimmermann’s own contributions in this genre maintain the bucolic mood. We return to Europe for the closing selections, concluding with Zimmermann’s hilariously parodistic suite of Rhineland Carnival Dances.

Disc Two features Zimmermann’s affinity for Eastern European music in the form of arrangements of works by Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff and Liszt. Two substantial Liszt selections feature the dramatic delivery of soprano Sarah Wegener. Zimmermann’s own works include Kontraste (1953), an unashamedly tonal suite of poly-stylistic dances for an imaginary ballet, a brief and breezy Concertino (1950) for piano and orchestra on a theme of Rachmaninoff, and the revised version of his substantial orchestral Konzert (1946/49) in four movements which demonstrates at this early stage of his career the lingering influence of Hindemith.

Disc Three features a grab-bag of arrangements of pleasant tunes by Smetana, Dvořák and Kodály among others. Vater and Sohn (1938), after Paul Haletski, and Edmund Nick’s Blues (1929) in particular are graced with sophisticated orchestrations. Zimmermann’s own music again bookends the disc, pairing the 1953 version of his one movement Symphony, an expressionistic work culminating in a cataclysmic march that evokes the horrors of war (he was drafted into the Wehrmacht from 1940 to 1942), and concludes with his last work for orchestra, the brooding, blues-influenced Stille und Umkehr. This ritualistic work, obsessively centred on a recurring middle D, was composed in 1970 during his stay at a psychiatric hospital. Plagued by recurring depression and rapidly deteriorating eyesight, he committed suicide later that year at the age of 52.

Charles Ives – Concord
Phillip Bush
Neuma 169 (neumarecords.org) 

More than a century ago, a reviewer writing in Musical America described Charles Ives’ second piano sonata, Concord, as “without any doubt the most startling conglomeration of meaningless notes that we have ever seen engraved on white paper.” Completed in 1915, the piece has since come to be regarded as a remarkable example of Ives’ mature style, with each of the four movements representing American literary figures with ties to Concord, Massachusetts. Through its size, technical challenges and overall breadth it’s a far from easy composition to bring off convincingly, but American pianist Philip Bush does so admirably in this Neuma recording. 

The difficult and lengthy first two movements Emerson and Hawthorne are performed with a particular bravado, while the gentler third movement The Alcotts – an homage to the literary sisters – evokes a true sense of nostalgia. The finale, Thoreau, is the slowest movement and the use of a flute in the opening section greatly enhances the wistful, hymn-like mood. The movement ultimately builds in intensity before leading to a surprisingly serene conclusion. Once again, Bush demonstrates an impressive command of this most daunting material.

Coupled with the Concord Sonata is the set of Six Preludes for Piano Op.15 by American composer Marion Bauer written in 1922. Composed in a post-impressionist style, they form an attractive study in contrasts and are a worthy pairing with the Ives. 

Music by an established American composer and by another who perhaps deserves greater recognition – this disc should be a staple in the catalogue.

John Cage – Sonatas & Interludes
Agnese Toniutti
Neuma 172 (neumarecords.org) 

On first hearing John Cage’s prepared piano, his close friend and colleague Lou Harrison is reputed to have exclaimed, “Oh dammit, I wish I’d thought of that!” With his invention Cage had created an instrument that opened the door to a new piano sound world via temporarily altering – preparing – some of the strings by strategically placing bolts, screws, rubber erasers or other objects between them. This gives each prepared string its own characteristic timbre and sound envelope, dramatically contrasting with those left unprepared.

While Bacchanale (1938-1940) was Cage’s first prepared piano composition, it took him another decade to pen his definitive work for it: the hour-long 19-movement Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48). Long viewed by the music establishment as a gimmicky outsider work, it’s become repertoire that new music pianists must reckon with. 

Italian Agnese Toniutti’s admirably sensitive Neuma Records rendition privileges rhythmic precision, a relaxed mood, in addition to a nuanced preparation of the grand piano. This produces a delightfully delicate and rich palette of dynamics, timbres and textures. I particularly enjoyed her effective evocation of a distant bass drum, buzzy gongs and the uncanny aural illusion of the sounds of a bonang and saron (respectively a gongchime and a metalophone instrument in the Javanese gamelan), interleaved with ordinary piano sounds.

There are certainly more dramatic and propulsive recorded performances of Sonatas & Interludes, such as those by (my teacher) James Tenney, Margaret Leng Tan, John Tilbury, Yuji Takahashi and others. On this album however, Toniutti makes a compelling case for a sensitive, soft-grained, quiet-leaning performance which I savoured. I think Cage would have too.

Lei Liang – Hearing Landscapes/Hearing Icescapes
Lei Liang
New Focus Recordings FCR360 (newfocusrecordings.com) 

Lei Liang’s disc Hearing Landscapes/Hearing Icescapes could easily have opened with the voice of Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise as it sets off to “go where no man has ever gone before.” With a sense of deep mysticism and a philosophical and artistic leap, Liang has first pierced the celestial dome of the sky and then returned to plumb the roar of the deep. 

On the riveting works of this album the composer has created a sonic diptych that beckons the listener to traverse with him from celestial heights to oceanic depths. In the first work – Hearing Landscapes – Liang takes off from the terrestrial promontory guided by the invisible hand (brush, really) of Huang Binhong, a fin de siècle painter, whose landscapes prove inspirational. 

On the opening movement of the work the composer also gives wing to a Chinese folk song sung by the celebrated Zhu Zhonglu from Qinghai, in Northwestern China. The mournful lyric gives way to the jagged soundscape of electronics, becoming eerily speech-like at one point in the second movement, ultimately evaporating by the end of the final part of the work. 

Liang, though, is far from done and the album continues in the raspy rustling of Hearing Icescapes, constructed around field recordings made literally 300 metres below the surface of the Chuckchi Sea north of Alaska. On paper this sounds impenetrable. Nevertheless, the performance of the whole score carries its powerful physical weight, obviating the necessity of narrative clarity.

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Steve Reich – Music for 18 Musicians
Colin Currie Group; Synergy Vocals
Colin Currie Records CCF0006 (colincurriegroup.com/the-music) 

Minimalist music is a late arrival. We owe Steve Reich a debt of gratitude for freeing our ears of the tired refrains of the past. And just in time. Alex Ross recently wrote that Max Richter’s exhalations “exude a gentle fatalism, a numbed acquiescence. Don’t worry, be pensive.” But where Richter’s music lulls, Reich’s stimulates. While we refer to Music for 18 Musicians as minimalist, it certainly doesn’t bear easy reductive analysis. There’s a LOT going on, and on, and on, the timing of the changes cunningly satisfying our love of regularity. Reich’s own breakdown of the piece is included in the liner notes, an additional treasure, a revelation of his process.

What to say about the playing and the production values? Both sound great in my headset, where it seems like they belong. Instruments and voices ranged about me, colours pass by on parade. I would love to hear this live, but I’d be distracted thinking about how tired the players are halfway through the 14 subparts, which run nonstop for just over an hour. I’d be envious, too, wanting to be up there working in the same groove. And no doubt I’d have a crush on at least one of the vocalists way sooner than half-way.

Recorded at Abbey Road Studios in 2022, Swingle-y sung by Synergy Vocals and battened down by the Colin Currie Group, there must be at LEAST 18 of them, just going for it. Put it on and forget it. Waltz through the chores and cares, in time and rhythm, see if you don’t feel better about the dusting or the sorting of the laundry. Or if you have the luxury of leisure, put it on and slip into couch-lock mode: be massaged, be refitted, recreated. Let the shifting shades and steady pulse iron out the folds in your psyche. Go about your day, propelled and sustained.