Wayne Horvitz: 55: Music and Dance in Concrete

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Kate Olson (ss)
Briggan Krauss (as)
Steven O'Brien (t)
Victoria Parker (vln)
Eyvind Kang (vla)
Wayne Horvitz (p, elec)
Heather Bentley (vla)
Beth Fleenor (cl)
Wayne Horvitz
Naomi Siegel (tb)
Roweena Hammil (clo)
Maria Manisto (v)

Label:

Other Room Music

October/2014

RecordDate:

date note stated

If, on first hearing, the music on this album sounds like a soundtrack in an art installation, then you'd be right. The 13 tracks on this atmospheric mixture of composition, improvisation and post-production electronics were edited from a much longer, site-specific dance/video collaboration whose 55 sections are referenced in the title. Horvitz's compositional palette ranges from po-faced Isaac Waltonish brass and music concrete electronics to layered minimalist riffs and slightly surreal, sedately plucked strings. Each track unfolds gradually, contrasts are few, and without any solos as such, it is impossible to work out what was improvised and what was pre-composed. Horvitz pulls together the various influences and inputs with rigor and each track, taken by itself, works well as an evocative mood-piece. The opener, ‘55 (1)’, conjures a static-camera video shoot of the Rainham Marshes – any bleak industrial landscape will do, as long as it's flat – the following track, ‘55 (15)’, a bustle of bees, ants or commuters and the third, ‘55 (29)’ would suit any flash and fizz neon sculpture. It ends with a short shimmer of bucolic modernism, ‘55 (20)’. Overall, the album feels more like a compilation than a work in itself, though the digital download, with an additional 13 pieces, may prove to be different.

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