Modern and Contemporary

Vigil
Ethel & Layale Chaker
In A Circle Records ICR030 (ethelcentral.bandcamp.com/album/vigil-icr030)

Radio Afloat
Layale Chaker & Sarafand
In A Circle Records ICR031 (layalechaker.bandcamp.com/album/radio-afloat-icr031)

For violinist Layale Chaker, the trigger for her composition Vigil, performed with the ensemble ETHEL, was the revolution in Lebanon. The work, however, takes its inspiration from the poem What They Did Yesterday Afternoon by the Somali-British poet Warsan Shire. As the liner notes tell us, the poem “sketches, with startling economy, a world torn by a cascading series of problems…” 

Chaker’s musical lines are closely aligned with the rhythm of the “world torn” and their dark tones and textures reflect the density of this “cascading.” Like the writer, she too visualises the fabric of humanity like expensive raw silk. This is reflected in the harmonic overtones that enrich the stark narratives of each of the movements of Vigil, building up to an almost frenzied crescendo in the fifth, and final episode of the tone poem. 

The members of ETHEL also contribute a piece each to this recording that describes a world in the thrall of a dark, existential angst. Chaker and the members of ETHEL employ an inspired understanding of Phrygian modes that inform Andalusi literature using a strophic form called qasida and maqama which Chaker brilliantly transforms into phrases made of ephemeral, almost ghostly glissandi that turns her into a kind of shamanic alchemist, enabling her to send audiences into emotional states that border on both the mystical and the magical. This (inspired use of maqama in her art) spells the true genius of Chaker’s musicianship. It is also what makes this recordingirresistibly hypnotic. 

If you listen to Chaker’s next recording Radio Afloat, fairly soon after you’ve listened to Vigil and you sense more pain in the works therein, you would be absolutely right. But consider this. The city of Beirut, (capital of her birth-country Lebanon), was once called the “Paris of the Middle East.” It was the proverbial city of light, so alive with joie de vivre that the sun never seemed to set on its citizenry. But internecine wars precipitated by religious strife, the greed of those who held positions of power and the residual effects of colonialism spelled the city’s (and country’s) doom.

The feeling of loss, of the sharp pain of having to leave behind what you love and emigrate elsewhere, will never leave a person who had experienced the kind of paradise that Beirut once was. This sense of loss is what burns with a slow blue flame throughout Radio Afloat. 

The music is played here by Chaker and the ensemble Sarafand, which comprises a cello, contrabass, piano, microtonal keyboard and a drum set that includes Lebanese frame drums. It also features Chaker’s vocals, characterised by ululating, high and lonesome wailing. Radio Afloat is an eight-movement suite which, as Chaker tells us, is woven into, and echoes, The Trace of Blue Passion, a poem by the Lebanese writer Ounsi el-Hage. 

The Trace of Blue Passion is a glorious lament in which the poet informs us: “After we witnessed the extent of bird’s wisdom / I remind you that it is in the nature of creatures / to harm themselves.” Like the poet, Chaker and the performers of Sarafand match the poem’s lyricism with profound musical beauty and classical pathos.

Cello Unlocked
Bryan Hayslett
Neuma 132 (bryanhayslett.bandcamp.com/album/cello-unlocked)

Feeling almost carved from the ground up, this album is full of interesting and innovative dialogues. Not only is it beautifully played, the pieces come to you as transcriptions of voices and stories through the cello and voice of Hayslett without affect or personal interference. 

There is a genuineness throughout the album which is refreshing. Vocals are raw and focus on the works, the poetry and the stories they tell. Haylsett’s performances are deeply interpretive, which is not necessarily the same as improvised, and he draws on fascinating academic research for his book The Theory of Prominence, where he discusses rhythm of music in relation to language. Throughout the album he illustrates this theory with his connection of the cello to the human voice. Beginning with Caroline Shaw’s in manus tuas, based on Christ’s final words on the cross it begins with a deep grittiness on the cello, where we first hear the voice intoning notes. Mary Kouyoumdjian’s and there was is an absolutely stunning working of a text rich with grief and loss, a full dialogue between cello and voice. Joan La Barbara’s with the years is a commanding work with text from a poem by Dorothea Tanning seen on the NYC subway. It is beautifully interpreted, from the delicate harmonic opening to the double-stopped vocal lines.  

The middle anchor of the album is Unlocked by Judith Weir, a work in five movements based on the John and Alan Lomax 1930s recordings of folk songs collected from Black prisoners in the American south. These are a range of direct transcriptions of whispers to blues, giving voice to prisoners otherwise unheard. Tonadas, Germán Marano’s gentle arrangement of two milking songs, is followed by recovering (speech rhythm study 1), a transcription from an original poem virtually matched on the cello. The album closes with Brent Michael David’s Cello Chili, a recipe for a pot of chili stirred with cello parts, a fun but also fascinating blend of speech and music.

Listen to 'Cello Unlocked' Now in the Listening Room

Decoda
Decoda
Bright Shiny Things BSTC-0203 (brightshiny.ninja/decoda)

There isn’t space here to recount every good thing about this disc, so let me start with the playing. Decoda is a septet of winds, strings and piano who reach beyond their instrumentation, aided of course by the material they choose. Valerie Coleman supplies the opening tracks. Commissioned and premiered by the group in 2018, and recorded for the first time here, Revelry isn’t exactly Pop, but it pops with exuberance and vigour. Mysterio is about the fun to be had in gathering together, but the second movement, War, evokes the darker side of collective action. At just over ten minutes, it doesn’t wear out the listener. You want the first to go on, but you need the second to stop. The playing is excellent.

Arrangements by group members of William Bolcom’s Three Rags become almost quaintly American, not quite parody and somewhat an homage. The arrangements leave out the piano, so they sound like a travelling band ready to hit the pubs. Having just escaped to Ireland recently, I highly recommend the group consider this. I found the latter two, Graceful Ghost and Poltergeist, more effective and less cliché than Incineratorag. Gotta love the titles though.  

The duo of Catherine Gregory (flute) and Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir (cello) cover the most territory, and deserve the most praise, in Folksongs (Set No.9) by Reza Vali. Vali mines his Persian heritage for extant and invented material, and the duo ramble through the roughly twenty-minute collection with elegance and verve. This set alone is more than enough reason to grab this disc, but the material on either side shows off Decoda’s full range and chops.

Emergence
Joel Chadabe
Intellegent Arts ARS-08 (joelchadabe.bandcamp.com)

Pioneering American electroacoustic composer Joel Chadabe (1938-2021), an early Robert Moog collaborator, was even earlier a student of modernist composer Elliott Carter. During his productive career Chadabe honed the cutting edge of innovation in his compositions and interactive musical instrument designs.

The career-spanning 18-track Emergence encompasses a wide range of his work from 1960s acoustic chamber music to recent electroacoustic compositions. All composed in 1967, 3 Ways of Looking at a Square for solo piano, the two-piano Diversions and the flute, clarinet, piano, cello quartet Prelude to Naples lean toward angular modernism.

Street Scene (1968) for English horn, tape, recitation and synthesizer on the other hand reveals Chadabe’s unexpected lyrical side – performed by the English horn melody – the spoken lyrics based on the tough/sensitive Lawrence Ferlinghetti beat poem The Long Street. This moody work deserves to be more widely programmed. 

The joyous Birdbath is a constant motoric burble of stereo synth 16th notes counterpointed by percussion interjections and birdsong. This short track demonstrates the composer’s deft command of synthesizer technique, instrumental timbre and wit. 

One World 2, an electronic dialogue between birdsong and globally-sourced human sounds, reflects Chadabe’s passionate environmentalism. He even posited three ways to sonically engage with the environment. “We can listen to the sounds of the world around us. We can listen through the ears, sensibilities, and talents of sound artists, which is more compelling and engaging. Or we can create sound art, which leads us to become yet more deeply and thoughtfully engaged.” This effective work illustrates the third path.