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New Sounds

Sunday, September 07, 2008
  • Rouse - End of Cinematics, photo by Dan Merlo
    Mikel Rouse's The End of Cinematics (photo by Dan Merlo)

    The End of Cinematics

    Mikel Rouse, the composer of interdisciplinary multimedia works like “Failing Kansas” and “Dennis Cleveland” presents his most ambitious work to date, “The End of Cinematics.” The work reflects on the way corporate entertainment has transformed the art of cinema, and combines live performance with original music and video/film. Also, Rouse presents some of his latest works, like “International Cloud Atlas,” music he wrote for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, along with the brand new, “Love at Twenty,” and more.

Special Podcast: Solo Sessions (originally aired Feb. 10, 2006)

For this edition of New Sounds, pianist/composer Matthew Shipp presents music from his album of nu-jazz, "One." His first collection of original solo material in nearly a decade, (his last solo outing was a record of standards, not his own works), Shipp gleefully explores and savors where the music might take him, rather than resorting to pianistic pyrotechnics. "One" is not all swirling contemplative eddies, however, there is a streak of volatility in the tune "Electro Magnetism," where Shipp’s fierce, low-end tones "threaten to shake the song loose from its floorboards." (PitchforkMedia.com)

New Sounds #2509 with Matt Shipp

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Twitchy Renaissance-Infused Minimalism

New Sounds

From the New Sounds Live concerts at Merkin Hall, Nico Muhly presents a series of new electroacoustic ensemble works, combining “twitchy Minimalism” and Renaissance polyphony. Hear brand-new works from "Mothertongue," along with other works, recorded live.

In Robert Moran's Kitchen

New Sounds

From October 30, 1989, the infamous "cooking show" with composer/raconteur Robert Moran. Recorded while cooking an Indian dinner in John Schaefer's kitchen, for reasons still not entirely clear. Along the way, we hear an "acoustic" version of Cage's 0:00 - for amplification of chopping vegetables and blender. And don't miss the teary conversation as onions are chopped. View the the recipes.

Michael Hedges and Michael Manring

New Sounds

The incredibly gifted and astonishingly original guitarist Michael Hedges left the planet much too soon in 1997. Avant-folk and ever-entertaining, Hedges made brilliant music with alternate tunings, harmonics and was known for striking the guitar’s body and strings with his fingers, palms and knuckles. His close friend and sometime collaborator, electric bass virtuoso Michael Manring, was a genre-bender, before music writers ever discovered that hyphenated term. He started out in the New Age bins, but moved all over with various projects, including the very first New Age-death-metal-jazz-funk-fusion record, among other things, with his “hyperbass”, (a fretless instrument which makes re-tuning mid-piece a little easier). On this October 10, 1987 edition of New Sounds, the two artists visited and played at the WNYC performance studios.

Caravan Variations

New Sounds

Like camels slogging through the sand, the exotic strains of “Caravan,” by Duke Ellington and his sometime trombonist Juan Tizol (with rarely heard lyrics by Irving Mills), have been played loose, fast, swinging, and/or slow by just about everyone. For this New Sounds program, it’s another of the occasional series of programs of Theme and Variations, where the premise is simple: take a single piece of music and explore what a number of musicians have done with it, through arrangements, deconstructions, and revisions of the original theme. This time around, it’s Duke Ellington’s “Caravan.” Listen to arrangements by Romania’s Fanfare Ciocarlia, Hungary’s Kalman Balogh & The Gipsy Cimbalom Band, the California Guitar Trio, the ska group Hepcat, banjoman Bela Fleck, Lebanese composer Rabih Abou-Khalil, and trumpeter/composer Jon Hassell, among others.