From Cold Blue Music:
Michael Fahres – The Tubes
This collection of haunting and beautiful music by composer and radio producer Fahres, weaves naturally occurring acoustic phenomena and elements of soundscape with the playing of celebrated performers to produce hauntingly intimate music.
The title piece features the breathy sounds emitted by the rock tube formations on El Hierro (westernmost of the Canary Islands) and performances by Aboriginal musician Mark Atkins and Los Angeles-based composer/trumpeter Jon Hassell, The two other works on the CD are Sevan, recorded near Lake Sevan (Armenia), featuring Armenian singer Parik Nazarian, and Coimbra 4, Mundi Theatre, a soundscape of a city-wide festival in Coimbra, Portugal. (More info…)
“I was transfixed by the haunting sounds and the poetic pacing of Fahres’ music on this CD. Rather than the sound floating through the room, it was as if I was floating in the sound.” —Morton Subotnick
Charlemagne Palestine – A Sweet Quasimodo Between Black Vampire Butterflies for Maybeck
A Sweet Quasimodo … is stunning 40-minute work for two grand pianos. It was recorded live during concert at the famed Maybeck hall in Berkeley, California, February 2006. Preceding the piece are Palestine’s short spoken reminiscence of his time spent in California more than 30 years ago and a brief ritual song accompanied by the drone of a rubbed brandy snifter. (More info…)
“Palestine has a way of choosing notes so as to tremendously affect the thickness of the sound and create panoramic variety (and even microtonal anomalies) among the overtone masses he is creating, sort of a one-man acoustic Glenn Branca symphony.” —Kyle Gann, Village Voice
“Palestine’s work offers sonic sculptures to be thoroughly inspected and savored at every moment.” —Dean Suzuki, Wired magazine
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