Various Artists - Spheres - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

As with many composers from the early modern period, very little is known about Gregoire Brayssing. This recording features his only surviving work, printed in Paris in 1553 as the fourth volume in a series dedicated to the guitar published by Adrian Le Roy and Robert Ballard. Brayssing's collection provides us with a few clues about his life the frontispiece describes him as 'de Augusta', meaning he was born in the German city of Augsburg. The Quart livre, despite containing only 20 pieces, is a pre-eminent example of writing for renaissance guitar, on a par with the works of Alonso Mudarra and Miguel de Fuenllana. It includes six short (some very short) contrapuntal fantasias, true gems of the repertoire, which showcase the composer's ability to take full advantage of the instrument's technical and expressive resources, including the fourth course with two strings in octaves, which the upper voice uses on more than one occasion. This device is employed throughout the book, but without 'strangling' the instrument, as happens in Fuenllana's works. The psalms are next, expertly crafted and ornate, with Brayssing's arrangement in a lower key of the first part of the motet In exitu Israel by Josquin des Prez a particular highlight. The composers of the other psalms are not known. The book continues with six chansons from leading composers of the time and a frottola, the famous O passi sparsi by Sebastiano Festa, all intabulated in the same manner as the psalms that precede them. Concluding the book are two long and intriguing compositions, completely unlike anything else in the repertoire L'Alouette and La guerre, faitte a plaisir. The title of the former turns out not to be a transcription of Cle´ment Janequin's famous work, but an original composition by Brayssing.

Various Artists - Music for Glass Harmonica / Various [COMPACT DISCS] date 08/22/1994

Over nearly two decades, composer / multi-instrumentalist M. Geddes Gengras has released an enormous catalog of wide-ranging, synth-focused music in solo and collaborative settings. He has participated in influential experimental groups like Sun Araw, Pocahaunted, Robedoor, and Akron/Family. Along with Sun Araw's Cameron Stallones and a host of Jamaican singers and artists, Gengras blurs the boundaries of dub and electronic music under the banner of Duppy Gun Productions. His solo works have appeared on labels including Room40, Leaving Records, Holy Mountain, and Umor Rex. After many years living in Los Angeles, Gengras now calls upstate New York home.M. Geddes Gengras returns to Hausu Mountain with Guest List, his fourth entry in the tag's catalog since 2019 and the first to be issued on vinyl. His albums for HausMo have ranged from the topographical ambient synth networks of I Am The Last of That Green and Warm-Hued World (HAUSMO88, 2019), to the dense technoid beat experiments of Time Makes Nothing Happen (HAUSMO109, 2020), to the rich post-rock-adjacent harmonic architectures of Expressed, I Noticed Silence (HAUSMO127, 2022). On Guest List, Gengras composes the most ambitious song cycle that he has ever captured in the context of one album, weaving his own synths and electronics into a dense tapestry of contrasting genres and ideas all animated by the presence of an enormous cast of collaborators. In Gengras's hands, the infinite-limbed drum performances of Greg Fox, the ecstatic guitar explorations of Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance), the soaring vocalizations of Christina Carter (Charalambides), and the contributions of many more artists become individual brushstrokes to paint across the canvases of his dense mixes. Channeling sonic details from his wide circle of friends, Gengras broadens his range of expression and composes the most communal and ultimatel