There’s great irony in the fact that modern winter music oft-includes the sounds of a vanishing season. The United Nations declared 2025 The Year of Glacier Preservation, and in response, the forms of minutiae imprint launched the year-long Ice Series, focusing on endangered physical and sonic environments. We could have filled half of this year’s spots with these releases but felt it would not…
Tristan Perich/Ensemble 0 Open Symmetry (Erased Tapes)
Beak >>>> / Kosmik Musik (Invada)
Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan Your Community Hub (Castles In Space)
John Luther Adams Arctic Dreams / Houses of the Wind / Waves and Particles (Cold Blue Music)
Karl Bartos Off The Record (Bureau B)
Drew McDowall A Thread Silvered and Trembling (Dais)
Rob Aiki Aubrey Lowe Grasshopper Republic (Invada)
Bad Ambulance Intel 95 (Nice Music)
Carlos Giffoni Dream Walker (Ideologic Organ)
Bob Vylan Humble As The Sun (Ghost Theatre 2)
Lisa Lerkenfeldt Halos of Perception (Shelter Press)
British Murder Boys Active Agents and House Boys (Downwards)
Mono Oath (Pelagic)
Wargasm UK Venom (Slowplay)
Blossom Toes We Are Ever So Clean (Polydor)
The multinational contemporary group ensemble 0 changes its personnel based on the pieces it is performing. On Music Nuvolosa, two pieces originally composed for different configurations are arranged for a chamber septet. Pairing works by Pauline Oliveros and György Ligeti might at first seem like a strange choice. However, both were pivotal in the formation of experimental music in the 1950s and 60s, and the pieces presented here work well as a set, revealing contrasts and similarities. The recording was made at La Soufflerie, Rezé, France, and arrangements of the pieces were assembled by Julien Pontvianne and Joël Mérah.
“Horse Sings from Cloud” (1982), by Oliveros, is a twenty-minute meditation comprising slowly evolving drones and overtones. Originally performed solo by Oliveros singing and playing accordion, here “Horse Sings from Cloud” is an incandescent rendition that features winds standing in for overtone singing and a blend of strings and winds taking the accordion chords. Rhythmic punctuation by piano and marimba gives us the sense of the bellows shifts that occur during accordion playing.
Ligeti’s “Musica Ricercata” (1953) anticipates the minimalism that would first appear about five years later in America, yet it contains considerable chromaticism, as well. This early piece is systematic in its additive construction. The first movement uses only two tones, the second three, and so on until the last movement completes the aggregate. The arrangement for Ensemble 0 uses two percussionists playing a number of instruments. Pitched percussion, piccolo and piano give the sonorities a bite. Bells, xylophone and a conjunct melody appearing in multiple registers in the rest of the group affords the second movement a Bartôkian ambience, while the sixth and eighth are reminiscent of Stravinsky. More than one minimalist can be seen to have cribbed from the ostinatos in the third movement, and the fourth provides an off-kilter waltz. In earlier movements, it is fascinating how much can be made with a relatively small complement of pitches.
Few compose laments as moving as those by Ligeti, and the fifth movement, “Lamentoso,” is gripping. The ninth is written in memory of Bartôk, sealing the connection heard earlier; here, lament is offset with emphatic keening. The finale is another homage, this one to the Baroque composer Frescobaldi, a master of early fugal counterpoint. Accordingly, Ligeti creates a ricercare that combines twelve-tone techniques with this earlier style.
Rearranging pieces for larger complements of instruments doesn’t always work, but when it does, as here, it shines new light on composers' inspiration and handiwork.
Sébastien Betbeder’s comedy-drama L’Incroyable Femme Des Neige (The Incredible Snow Woman) looks like a lot of fun based on the trailer, but don’t judge the film score by the trailer music. What Ensemble 0 (Sylvain Chauveau, Stéphane Garin & Joël Mérah) have composed is something tonally different: more subdued, as lighthearted as falling snow. LAAPS is giving it the full treatment, along with…
A subset of Ensemble 0 performing Sarah Hennies'Zeitgebers.
Then an other subset of Ensemble 0 for Steve Reich's Four organs.
And the wonderful Pozgarria Da by Petar Klanac (https://petarklanac.bandcamp.com/track/pozgarria-da-full-album-continuous ) (at least one percussionist and a gamelan player didn't fit in the picture)
