Gerhard / Bbc Philharmonic - Gerhard: Don Quixote (Complete Ballet); Suite from Alegrias; - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

During his long and exceptionally fruitful creative life, Richard Strauss (1864-1949) composed only a few works for the cello. Only three have survived and small as that number may seem, those cello works are critical to the composer's development. Daniel Muller-Schott sees the early Sonata for cello and piano op. 6 and the late tone poem InchDon QuixoteInch op. 35 as marking the path that was to lead Strauss within the space of a few years from Romanticism to the Modern era in music. The cellist highlights this watershed in Strauss's artistic development with his own transcriptions, expressly made for this album, of the Lieder InchZueignungInch op. 10/1 and InchIch trage meine MinneInch op. 32/1.

Soundtrack to a poolside scene at a Ramada Inn in Florida in 1987 on summer vacation with your family but you're a bored and stifled teenager who falls in love with every cute girl you see...' That is how Allene Norton, the founder of the synth-pop, 80's influenced project Cellars would describe her music. Phases, her second album out on Manifesto Records and produced by Ariel Pink is no exception. Recently reviewed by Pitchfork, giving the album a of 7 out 10, saying Phases sounds 'zapped straight from the sepia-toned dance floor of a long-forgotten high school prom. Nighttime Girl' the first single and video from Phases, according to Allene is the struggle of finding your own way in a new place, discovering who you are, and the dissonant feelings of being sure and unsure at the same time.'It's mix of fuzzy guitars and bendy synths brings to mind Neon Indian, and it's another strong piece of evidence in the Chillwave Will Never and Should Never Die case file.'

The collaborative debut of American minimal techno pioneer Troy Pierce and Colombian audiovisual artist Natalia Escobar aka Poison Arrow was conceived in reverse first they created a collection of shadowy surrealist videos, then wrote music inspired by them. This inverted process proved remarkably fruitful. Shatter is a simmering, slow-burn noir odyssey inspired by the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus, traversing subtle shades of sleepwalker dub, metallic lament, broken beats, and erotic negative space. It's an effectively unsettling evocation of the legend's core theme InchThere is nothing more complex than a shattered heart, or a heart that can't love.InchConsidering their shared background trafficking in darkened dance floor modes, what's most striking about Pierce with Arrow's partnership is it's rhythmic restraint. The album's 10 tracks seethe and shudder between glamor and gloom, with only occasional dread-steeped metronomes mapping the malaise to a grid. They speak of pursuing a Inchspatial approachInch with this project, which manifests in the music's immersive design and patient execution, each mangled clang and rippling pool of bass allowed to reverberate it's full flickering waveform. Guest appearances by austere techno producer Konrad Black (InchObsidian GlassInch) and drum n bass institution dBridge (InchIt's A Love Story, After AllInch) flow seamlessly into the whole, subtle sculptural accents on a dimly lit descent through purgatories of longing and lust. But the shadows recede for the record's closing cut, InchNarcissus,Inch which swells elegiacally in a mass of devotional drones over a muted heartbeat, like Narcissus gazing upon his reflection in holy awe elusive true beauty, finally beheld, by itself.