Wednesday, December 14, 2005

This is classical music, folks

There's a group of musicians in new york who call themselves the alarm will sound ensemble and they are doing everything i want to do... sort of. They have a myspace site where you can listen to 4 tracks of their making. There are two of Steve Reich's works on there that they've performed, the gorgeous tehillim and desert music- but my personal favorite is the track titled Cock ver 10, -Edit: its an aphex twin cover- thanks meg for the correction.

The instrumentation and approach endears me to them, i would love to be doing what they're doing. The only problem is that they got there first, the bastards. Personally, I think they emphasize the drums a little too much and some of the music itself isnt always to my liking per se- but, like i said, the concept is there exactly. The New York Times says- "the future of classical music", if that means anything to you.

There are several composers working in the group, and the instrumentation is too diverse to list, they list their influences as*:

Gyorgy Ligeti, Steve Reich, Aphex Twin, John Adams, Harrison Birtwistle, Frank Zappa, Michael Gordon, J.S. Bach, Benedict Mason, Conlon Nancarrow, Jelly Roll Morton

Why Beethoven, Debussy and Stravinsky arnt there, i dont understand. Nonetheless, i really like what they're doing and i wish i could be in new y0rk to see them perform/meet them.

* this information and more is on the myspace site, so why im posting it is somewhat of a mystery to me.

4 comments:

Meg said...

Cock ver 10 is a Aphex Twin cover.

M. Keiser said...

good to know, thanks for the correction!

Anonymous said...

Tried Iridian Radio yet? I believe I found this streaming station via an article or links collection in someone's weblog you linked to:

http://www.iridianradio.com/

I enjoy not all the selection in this station's programme, and I can listen to it only for an hour or so in a single sitting, but I come across something new and/or interesting from time to time.

M. Keiser said...

i'll definately check it out! thanks for the link.