Orion Weiss - Arc 1 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

This album strives to understand the varying ways composers comprehend grief, loss and death. How did they cope, their hearts broken, their peace gone? And how can we cope? In this combination of works Weiss has tried to follow the paths these great composers walked in their own grief. Their tracks lead us from death back towards life, from horror to hope. Of his Arc album series, Orion Weiss explains 'The arc of this recital trilogy is inverted, like a rainbow's reflection in water. Arc I's first steps here head downhill, beginning from hope and proceeding down to despair. The bottom of the journey, Arc II, is Earth's center, grief, loss, the lowest we can reach. The return trip, Arc III, is one of excitement and renewal, filled with the joy of rebirth and the anticipation of a better future.'

The music recorded on Arc I [FHR127] expresses foreboding from the brink of disaster. The music on Arc II [FHR128] was written by composers dealing with tragedy. At last, Arc III is a set of pieces born from the bright points of life. Peace, hope, love, ambition, optimism and the divine - the inspirations are myriad. These compositions spring from the million shades of happiness. Orion Weiss has performed internationally as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. This is his sixth album of solo piano music, his third for First Hand Records. Full biography available at orionweiss. Com

New York psych-pop band Crumb return with AMAMA, their most carefree and open-hearted album to date. A soundscape full of playful and patchwork experimentation - glitchy pitch-shifted vocals, cell phone recordings, nautical blips, sax mouthpiece solos, blasted drum samples, and piano strings dampened with Silly Putty - AMAMA continues to deepen the band's hypnotic sound in a cohesive line back through 2021's Ice Melt, 2019's Jinx, and breakout EPs Locket and Crumb. Without a doubt, AMAMA is Crumb - singer and multi-instrumentalist Lila Ramani, keyboardist and saxophonist Bri Aronow, bassist Jesse Brotter, and drummer Jonathan Gilad - at their most animated.Buoyed by Ramani's songwriting, at turns poetically abstract and directly confessional, AMAMA culls the strange encounters from Crumb's touring years, tracing the dizzying path of a group that's been in movement for nearly a decade. InchCrushxdInch is an ecstatic requiem for a turtle flattened under the tires of a tour van; Inch(Alone in) BrusselsInch finds Ramani in forced isolation in a distant city. On InchThe Bug,Inch we're at a pit stop in a seedy motel, where a critter's bite leaves a nagging feeling InchIt's always on my mind / it's just always on my mind,Inch Ramani repeats over a creeping groove as she wanders the place at night. On InchSide by Side,Inch perhaps the most candid track on AMAMA, frenetic percussion and disorienting, layered synth envelop Ramani as she considers the personal sacrifices she's made along the way.Even as it explores transient stops and fraught encounters, AMAMA features some of Crumb's most vulnerable, tender searches for organic connection. InchHome is what I want and what I need,Inch Ramani sings on the clear-sighted opener, InchFrom Outside a Window SillInch-which samples a police radio scan about a flock of geese crossing a bridge in Gowanus, Brooklyn, where Ramani grew up.