Over and above his legendary career as leader of the Arditti Quartet, Irvine Arditti has worked on many solo projects and is still today one of the foremost interpreters of the music of our time. Over the past decade he has given the world premieres of a whole host of large-scale works written especially for him. His approach to the contemporary violin is fascinating. The works by Salvatore Sciarrino, Elliott Carter, Emmanuel Nunes and Pierre Boulez assembled in this album are among the most widely known in the recent repertory for violin, both on account of the transcendental character of the pieces themselves and the impetus they have given the instrument’s technique, but also and above all because of the accomplishment manifest in the variety of their modes of expression.

The performers in Kurzwellen react to the completely unforeseeable events which they receive on short-wave radios while performing on their instruments. But this is not improvisation. Stockhausen s score instructs them how to transform what they hear: how they imitate amd modulate it, make it longer or shorter, how to rhythmically articulate it, higher or lower, louder or softer, darker or more playful. Whether they should play and as solo, duo, trio or quartet, etc. Though not so familiar now, at the time short-wave radios made it possible to listen to live radio stations from all over the world. The transmission was not always clean, but disturbed by noises and interferences. Moving from one station to another one could hear Morse-code signals, amateur radio communications and all kind of electronic sounds and noises. Stockhausen wanted this sound world to be part of Kurzwellen. This new version created by C.L.S.I., premiered at the Stockhausen Summer Course in Kurten on August 10th 2011, is a kind of updating of Stockhausen s one of the 1960s.

"Long awaited" is very true in this case given that Godfrey's only previous solo album dates back to 1973. It's also an accurate description given that this disc of piano music was originally supposed to have been released a year ago. The end result is very satisfying and much, much better than his recent collaborations with the other members of the Enid.

Alfred Schnittke's Second Concerto Grosso is a different creature than his First. While the 1977 Concerto Grosso No. 1 for 2 Violins, Strings and Keyboards is a lithe, vicious, often comical work, the Second, finished five years later, is a weightier affair. The soloists are now violin and cello; the Baroque band is now a full orchestra with electric guitar, drum kit, and brake drum; there are four large movements rather than six smaller ones; the entire work is imbued with an air of sincere tragedy, albeit with mud on its shoes. Schnittke dedicated the work to its premiere soloists, husband-and-wife duo Oleg Kagan (violin) and Natalia Gutman (cello); famed for their flawless ensemble, the couple inspired in Schnittke a musical air of companionship – a single soul in two instruments.

Mute and Spoon are pleased to announce the release of VILLA WUNDERBAR, on 4 November 2013, a 2CD set, compiling the work of Can founder Irmin Schmidt’s solo and soundtrack work, including two unreleased Can remixes and a collection of soundtrack pieces personally compiled by long-term collaborator Wim Wenders. CD1 is a compilation of Irmin Schmidt’s extensive work as a solo artist over the past 30 years, whilst CD2 – selected and presented by the filmmaker Wim Wenders – is an insight into Schmidt’s vast work as a composer for film and television for which Wenders has written extensive sleeve notes. The two CD compilation includes tracks such as Villa Wunderbar, Kick On The Floods and Bohemian Step, alongside unreleased remixes by Schmidt of two Can tracks, Alice and Last Night Sleep.

“To Quince, "Motherland" means our natal home, worthy of love, critique, and support. It represents the terrain of those who identify as women, as mothers of varying types - creators and producers and life-givers and life-sacrificers. Mother-land is both embodiment and inversion of Emily Dickinson’s “Nature, the gentlest mother” - capable of supporting all life, and of obliterating it with forces as simple as a breath of air. This album features never-before-heard recordings of pieces by Laura Steenberge, Gilda Lyons, Cara Haxo, and Jennifer Jolley. As long as we have breath left in us, we will sing our gratitude, our love, our frustration, and our hopes. There is no greater privilege.” – from the liner notes by Quince Ensemble.

Bellowing Sun is Mind Over Mirrors' second album as a full band, with Freakwater's Janet Beveridge Bean, Califone's Jim Becker, and percussionist Jon Mueller (Collections of Colonies of Bees, Volcano Choir) accompanying founder Jaime Fennelly. As with 2017's Undying Color, Bellowing Sun adds a dose of cosmic Americana to MOM's raga-inspired droning, with rustic violins and pounding drums meshing with Fennelly's shimmering, neon synth arpeggios and wheezing Indian harmonium.

Along the Polwechsel path towards a reflected reintegration of the once excluded musical parameters, the two composers for this CD, Michael Moser and Werner Dafeldecker, have gone one step further while also reflecting Polwechsel’s own history: tradi-tional parameters are reintroduced into the original Polwechsel idiom as disturbances, refractions or inclusions. The invitation extended to guest soloist John Tilbury is also part of the reflected reintegration of traditional elements and the extension of Polwechsel’s concept…

Balancing active organized sound worlds from Graham Lambkin with Wandelweiser discretion from Michael Pisaro in five tracks that punctuate concrete sound compositions with Feldman-esque piano progressions, bound together by a short poem; captivating and elusive.

Music, song, and poetry have long enjoyed a stimulating relationship; coming together for expressive ends and sometimes colliding in dramatic showdowns. None more so than in these vocal works by two composers who often explore extremes, Milton Babbitt and Michael Hersch. Babbitt’s ‘Philomel’ (1964) was an audacious stab at recasting conventions of song (such as voice with accompaniment) by redistributing the text between live voice, recorded voice, and analog synthesizer. The fragmentary words and syllables by poet John Hollander retell Ovid’s story of the rape and subsequent transformation of Philomel into a nightingale; aptly paralleled by the metamorphosis of the human and artificial sonorities.

Born in Sapporo, Japan in 1954, Yuko Fujiyama started playing piano at the age of four. But it wasn’t until a summer morning in 1980 standing on a sidewalk in New York’s East Village that she found her calling; someone was playing a Cecil Taylor tape and she was transfixed by the piano sounds. That someone was Taylor’s drummer, Jerome Cooper, and that moment opened a door for her to the abstract beauty of music. She has been “looking for musical structures” ever since. “Recently, I’ve been trying to be free from a feeling of linear time. This album, Night Wave, is the result of my long search.” Joining her in this quest are three esteemed fellow travelers in the art of improvisation: percussionist Susie Ibarra, violinist Jennifer Choi, and cornet/flugelhornist Graham Haynes: “It was a joy to play with these beautiful musicians. I appreciate Susie for her earthy but sensitive sound, Jennifer for her beautiful melodies, and Graham for his simple and rich expressions.” .

Joshua Rubin's debut solo recording, "There Never is No Light" (TUN 002) features landmark works representing forty years of electronic exploration in contemporary music. The album highlights music by Suzanne Farrin and Olly Wilson, newly commissioned works by New York-based composer/performer Mario Diaz de Leon and Mexican composer Ignacio Baca Lobera, alongside world-premiere recordings of computer music pioneer Mario Davidovsky and a new electroacoustic work co-composed with pianist Cory Smythe.

Italian ensemble Alter Ego have made their name playing the post-minimalism of composers as diverse as Louis Andriessen, David Lang and Frederic Rzewski. Now they turn their attention to pre-, or perhaps more accurately, prototype minimalism in this fine two-disc survey of early Philip Glass. Rejecting the seamless cross-stitching and salamander slither of Glass’s own ensemble, Alter Ego opt for a brassier and more strident approach. This strategy proposes a subtly alternative view about which the composer obviously approves – Orange Mountain Music is his own label.

"Dance" is an extraordinary epic composition from one of the most revolutionary composers of the late 20th century to the present, Philip Glass. From the mid 1960's onwards, Glass has revolutionized a form of composition that has become known as 'minimalism' (although Glass himself denies being a composer of minimal music). Several of Glass's works have gone on to be standards of modern Classical music.

The hook for this terrific recording of three of Steve Reich's most attractive works is the use of alternate versions of the several pieces that differ from the original recordings on Nonesuch. This recording has Reich's imprimatur; he enthusiastically recommends the performances in a program note. The most radical departure from the original version is Piano Counterpoint, Vincent Corver's arrangement of Six Pianos for a single live pianist with the other five parts prerecorded. This allows the piece to fit nicely into Reich's "Counterpoint" series, which includes Vermont Counterpoint for flutes and New York Counterpoint for clarinets. Corver also speeds up the tempo so the piece has an even more propulsive aural energy, although in live performance it's hard to beat the visceral excitement of six pianists on-stage. The London Steve Reich Ensemble version of the Triple Quartet, unlike the Kronos Quartet's premiere recording, uses three live quartets, and is one of three performance options that Reich specified in the score, the third being an orchestral version with 36 players. This is the first commercial recording of this version.