On the occasional Friday, Collector will present three disparate but artistically worthwhile digital artifacts from the worlds of music, performance, and art.
saajtak “Spokes EP”
Detroit band saajtak’s music is a wild trip: angular, ambient, full of fusion rhythms — like the good fusion, maybe early Return To Forever with Musicmagic-era RTF , which I would argue is a great record —proggy and the explorations are worthwhile. Alex Koi’s powerful and versatile voice presides over these four songs as the keyboard/bass/drum instrumentation locks into nice grooves and tricky passages where two consistent rhythms are played against each other for a wonderful effect. This is worth a few listens.
Barbara Hannigan — Let Me Tell You
Released on Winter and Winter, soprano and sometimes soprano/conductor Barbara Hannigan masterfully sings Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen’s Let Me Tell You, a truly gorgeous song cycle written for Hannigan. This live video captures the last section, “ I will go out now,” which showcases Hannigan’s vocal range and the ability to jump registers seamlessly. There are many subtle percussion and pitch choices in this section, so subtle that the video is very useful and, I’d say, actually changes how you hear this piece.
Folke Rabe “Basta” for solo trombone
Folke Rabe passed away on September 25, 2017. In certain circles, he was probably best known for What??, a monumental drone piece originally issued by Wergo and reissued on Dexter’s Cigar, the label run by Jim O’Rourke and David Grubbs. But outside of his electronic works, Rabe composed for orchestra, chamber ensemble, mixed chorus, and solo instruments.
Here is a performance of “Basta” by trombonist Gerard Costes. Of this 1982 piece, Rabe writes, “In the early 80s, I composed a series of virtuoso pieces for soloists on various instruments. ‘Basta’ was the first of these. Here you can hear examples of extremely fast scale movements and chords that are produced when the player sings and plays simultaneously. The same techniques, very much further developed, are used in my trombone concerto ‘All the lonely people…’ [also] written for Christian Lindberg in 1990 and recorded by him on the BIS CD label.”
Check out this entrance!!
