Ragazze Quartet - Four Four Three - Music Of Terry Riley - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The Ragazze Quartet has been acclaimed for their musical enthusiasm, talent, versatility and presentation. The young Dutch ensemble frequently collaborates with composers, musicians - classical or otherwise - and artists working in a variety of disciplines. In spite of it's life-affirming title, Vivere, the group's Channel Classics debut, is not exactly a cheerful disc. All three compositions refer in various ways to death. This is reflected in the key signatures of the repertoire (D minor is considered the key of death) and the programmatic content of the Schubert and Widmann quartets. The cellist actually 'dies' in the Widmann! Spectacularly well recorded, this disc presents an unusual and compelling program and introduces the world to a dynamic and exciting new ensemble.

Quicksails' approach on Blue Rise foregrounds his palette of modular and digital synthesizers, resulting in a strain of music that brims with shimmering textures and rich, layered harmonies. More than a full-on pivot to another style, Quicksails enters into a mode of production that highlights his melodic sensibilities and his ear for sophisticated DAW-based composition. Each track unfolds as a self-contained world replete with fluctuating tiers of fine-grain synth-tones that morph as they stack together into systems of polyrhythmic activity or smear into all-consuming drift. Quicksails lays out a menu of contrasting sentimental spaces and self-contained sonic tableaus, each of which refracts the sun's light out across new terrains. Blue Rise cements Quicksails not only as a master synthesist and arranger of far-flung sound sources, but as a composer attuned to the time dilating properties and the instantaneous emotional impacts of the zones that he lays out before us.A1) CypressA2) Believe the CloudsA3) Melrose MoveA4) Sid's Symphony #2B1) Blue RiseB2) Ice Walk (With Love)B3) Florian's BrushB4) Woodhaven

Rubbra / Pound / Jones - Four String Quarte [COMPACT DISCS] date 03/28/2007