This week I present a playlist of all duets. Because I like making up silly little rules for myself, the duets I chose could not be instrument + piano (with the exception of the Lentz/Craig and Fung) and if the second instrument was electronics, there had to be a person manipulating the knobs. I’ve been listening to a lot of bigger works recently with 100 Days of Summer Listening and I think I wanted a break with works that were more paired down. This group of works made me think outside of what I would be considered a traditional duet as several of the works are improvised or were collaboratively written (most specifically Snares by Methods Body, Joyce by William Ian Craig and Daniel Lentz, silt by Yang Chen, and 07_05_20 | 20:51 [Fitch//Wyllys] by Paula Matthusen and Olivia Valentine which involves “live-textile construction” as the second music-making element. Enjoy and happy listening.)
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I give this playlist a Difficult Listening Hour rating of 6/10.
Snares by Methods Body. Album: Plural Not Possessive
METHODS BODY (Portland, OR, USA) creates original sound art and music using custom tuning systems, involuted polyrhythms, and the cadences of language. John Niekrasz (Ecstatic Peace, ESP-Disk’) and Luke Wyland (The Leaf Label, Hometapes, Crammed Records) use bespoke live-sampling technologies and meta-cognitive compositions to inhabit waves of subliminal melody and deep, uncanny grooves.
Prayer by Vivian Fung performed by the Carr-Petrova Duo. Album: HERS
JUNO Award-winning composer Vivian Fung has a unique talent for combining idiosyncratic textures and styles into large-scale works, reflecting her multicultural background. NPR calls her “one of today’s most eclectic composers,” and The Philadelphia Inquirer praises her “stunningly original compositional voice.”
Viola, Viola by George Benjamin performed by Hsin-Yun Huang and Misha Amory. Album: Viola, Viola
From the LA Phil quoting the composer, “From the composer’s note: “My desire at times was to conjure an almost orchestral depth and variety of sound….The implied harmony is intended to be as sonorous as possible, the texture sometimes maintaining four or more parts for sustained periods.”
(I also heard him say this in person)
We Speak Etruscan by Lee Hyla performed by Tim Smith and Tim Berne. Album: Lee Hyla: We Speak Etruscan
07_05_20 | 20:51 [Fitch//Wyllys] by Paula Matthusen and Olivia Valentine. Album: Between Systems and Grounds: The Overshot Sessions
From the liner notes, “Percussive machine sounds meld with synthesized electronic tones and noise bursts out of feedback created between spaces spanning countries and continents – <> involve bridging two disparate mediums – live-electronics and live-textile construction – together to examine contrasting spaces and time scales. This project album plays with patterns of tone and noise, computational techniques in art making practices, and the sharing of space and time through communal work”
Joyce by William Ian Craig and Daniel Lentz. Album: In a Word
From the liner notes, “In a Word, the sixteenth installment of the intergenerational collaboration series FRKWYS, brings together postminimalist composer Daniel Lentz with vocalist and sound artist Ian William Craig for an album that embraces erosion and the fertility of the loam left behind. A document of shared transformation, Lentz’s elegant piano figures and Craig’s trembling tenor are wilted, warbled, and looped through manipulated tape machines in a real time composition that evokes a strange warmth and layered beauty.”
Marimba Phase by Steve Reich performed by Michael Hauke and Michael Kiedaisch. Album: Jazz / Minimal / Avantgarde
Piano Phase but for marimbas.
Hockets for Two Voices by Meara O’Reilly. Album: Hockets for Two Voices
“In just over ten minutes of recorded music, Los Angeles-based composer, artist, and instrument designer Meara O’Reilly can communicate a daunting breadth of creative possibility. That’s no mean feat in today’s soundbite-obsessive world, but it’s part of what makes Hockets for Two Voices such an unusual and compelling addition to the hypermodern canon of new music.”
Dialogue 1 by Kate Soper and Sam Pluta. Album: The Understanding of All Things
From the liner notes, “Composer/vocalist/pianist Kate Soper teams up with longtime Wet Ink Ensemble colleague composer/electronic musician Sam Pluta in this bracing collection that explores the ever shifting hierarchy between text driven and music dominated vocal work. Soper’s distinct musical voice and characteristically clever approach to setting text in three original works are balanced by Pluta’s ever inventive and sensitive marshaling of his unique arsenal of electronic textures as he joins Soper in two improvisations.”
Vega’s Array by Mary Halvorson and John Dieterich. Album: A Tangle of Stars.
Note: Not available on YouTube
Piece in the Shape of a Square by Philip Glass performed by Alter Ego. Album: Alter Ego performs Philip Glass
YouTube recording performed by Claire Chase.
Stillwater Marsh by Aaron Travers performed by Emlyn Johnson and Daniel Ketter (American Wild Ensemble). Album: Duos and Trios
From the liner notes, “The intrepid American Wild Ensemble was formed around a project to perform new works in national parks in the US, and has continued to create exciting events outdoors in unconventional spaces, from caves to mountaintops. Their recording, Duos and Trios, features four works for combinations of cello, clarinet, and flute by Aaron Travers, David Liptak, Margaret Brouwer, and David Clay Mettens that reflect the ensembles penchant for deriving inspiration from the natural world.”
silt by Yang Chen performed by Sarah Constant and Yan Chen. Album: longing for _
From the composer, “is my debut album of 8 new percussion centric works each developed in collaboration with an artist-musician-friend who, because of the pandemic, I had missed out on working with. The theme arose from my own processes of grief and adaptation with the widespread cancellation of live musical events and loss of conventional methods of connection and closeness to my own musical communities.”
Observations by Tristan Perich performed by the Meehan/Perkins Duo. Album: Travel Diary.