Four slices of chamber music from composers John Luther Adams, Rick Cox, Michael Jon Fink and Jim Fox gets compiled on this CD, punctuated by two short, quiet clarinet interludes by Marty Walker. Adams’ “Dark Wind” lives up to its title with gorgeous acoustic instrument atmospherics that flow and darkly brood with the best of ‘em–very minimal, pleasurable and impressive. In Fink’s “Thread of Summer,” a forlorn melody is bandied about between Marty and the rest of the ensemble. Cox’s “When April May” “floats a lyric line over a repeating harmonics structure,” while Fox’s “Between the Wheels” boasts a “series of quiet bass clarinet statements, accompanied by violin harmonics, heard against a cycling tapestry of string tremolos.” All in all, this CD gives the impression of being one long, flowing work of a single composer, rather than four, and stands as a fine presentation of austere understatement. Featuring Amy Knoles on vibraphone and marimba, Bryan Pezzone on piano, Maria Newman and Peter Kent on violins, Valerie Dimond on viola, Greg Gottlieb on cello and Dan Smith on cello.

Label: Cold Blue Catalog Number: CB0009 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 6 Total Time: 41:00 Country: United States Released: 2002 More: Discogs, Forced Exposure, Last FM, Official

Text ©2009 Arcane Candy

Jim Fox is a composer and the founder / art director of Cold Blue. This California-based avant-garde classical label, which started out with numerous vinyl releases in the early 1980s, went on hiatus after several years, re-emerged in 2000 with CDs, and has been going strong ever since. The label’s debut CD, Last Things, offers one hour of expanding sonic mist via two long electro-acoustic tracks. “The Copy Of The Drawing” features soft, female vocals whispering tidbits of beautiful mystery while multiple layers of abstract electronic leg warmers perpetually and completely unfurl in the air and hover around your body, then turn all local matter into pure energy, and set your battered spirit gently afloat into a universe-sized vat of imaginary dark chocolate.

The title track is a long, 20-minute dark rumble o’ pleasure, “somewhat a rhapsodic call and response between bass clarinet and pedal steel guitar…constructed of seven connected sections (or songs) that, over the length of the piece, slowly build in intensity. As the piece progresses, each section expands in length from the previous and the bass clarinet’s tessitura, or average pitch range, tends to ride as it embraces stylistic extremes of vibrato and timbre. Beneath the bass clarinet and pedal steel guitar cycle two expanding sets of harmonies—one played on electronic keyboards and the other on piano.” Overall, the music on Last Things evokes the wide-open spaces of the beautiful, undeveloped deserts of its Southern California home. Featuring Janyce Collins on voice, Jim Fox on electronics, piano and electronic keyboards, Marty Walker on bass clarinet, Chas Smith on pedal steel guitar and Rick Cox on glass guitar.

Label: Cold Blue Catalog Number: CB0001 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 2 Total Time: 60:37 Country: United States Released: 2000 More: Discogs, Forced Exposure, Official, Wikipedia

Text ©2009 Arcane Candy