Schmelzer / Holloway / Linden / Willi / Theorbo - Intrada Di Polcinelli - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

With Touch, the Tortoise bandmembers - Jeff Parker, Dan Bitney, Douglas McCombs, John Herndon, and John McEntire - harness their collectivist songwriting approach, a slightly anarchistic but resolutely egalitarian process where ideas triumph over ego towards an abstracted muscularity. While there are still excursions into the dusky, elegantly gnarled jazz ambience that flourished on landmark works like Millions Now Living Will Never Die and TNT, Touch is perhaps most remarkable for Tortoise's unapologetic embrace of grand gesture. Aerodynamically re-engineered Krautrock, hand-cranked techno rave-ups, and pointillist spaghetti western fanfares are all imbued with Tortoise's now-signature internal logic - equally alluring and confounding, a puzzle to be savored rather than solved. The stylistic diversity is also a reflection of the band's current operating circumstances With two members now in Los Angeles, another in Portland, and just two remaining in the band's Chicago hometown, their creative process has shifted dramatically from when they lived together in a loft space in the late 1990s, honing their sound over endless hours of collective experimentation. Recorded between the three cities - Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago - Touch is the result of an intentional effort by these five musicians to reconnect, recenter, and reinvigorate their sound for what is perhaps the group's most diverse to date.

J.H. Schmelzer - Sonatas / Balletti Francesi / Ciaconna [COMPACT DISCS] date 02/29/2008

Ingenuity and variety characterise Locatelli's concertos. His Introduttioni teatrali are a veritable firework of musical ideas, contrasts and effects; his Concerti grossi showcase the virtuosity of the soloists. This recording realises the concerti in a small ensemble. This was Locatelli's intention, who played with local ensembles on his travels an interplay of highly virtuosic, demanding solo passages and simpler tutti passages. The Thuringian Bach Collegium follows on stylistically from the highly acclaimed of the concertos of Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar and continues the series of recordings on audite.