Athens Voice From Special Winter Guide 2015

Time Is A Blind Guide is both the title of Thomas Strønen’s album and the name of his new Norwegian-British ensemble. In contrast to Food and its electronic soundscapes, TIABG is an all-acoustic group which plays what its drummer-leader-composer calls “melodic music with a twist.” Its melodies unfurl sinuously over shifting rhythmic patterns. The band was built to include a number of overlapping musical sub-groups. “There is a kind of enhanced piano trio at the centre of Time Is A Blind Guide,” says Strønen. “And there is a string group with violin and cello and bass - over the years I’ve written lots of music for strings - as well as a drum ensemble with me and Siv Øyunn Kjenstad and Steinar Mossige…” The two percussionists often assert strong and solid grooves, allowing Strønen to play freely on top of the rhythms and to interact dynamically with the outstanding young English pianist Kit Downes, who makes his ECM debut here…

Well, it does exactly what it says on the box. The 57 tracks on this 'Magic Bus' compilation run from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, but, with remarkable perspicacity, the compiler has mixed them up very cleverly. The CDs are called 'Turn On', 'Tune In' and 'Drop Out' and the songs on each one reflect, more or less, their monikers. Thus, on CD1 Scott McKenzie rubs shoulders with Barry McGuire, CD2 is full of singer-songwriters; Dylan, Cat Stevens and the like; whilst CD3 rocks it up with Steppenwolf and Cream. What this collection is selling is nostalgia and it does it very, very well. Anyone who grew up through the years in question will remember every one of these songs and probably sing along with them too. It has to be said that there are two major omissions though, there is nothing by either The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. Down to licensing presumably. That said, this is an absolutely classic collection that has been selected with extreme care and, dare it be said, love.

Of Philip Glass' conventionally scored chamber works, his String Quartet No. 5 is probably the best-known, in part because the Kronos Quartet and the Smith Quartet have given it first-rate recordings, but also because its more traditional approach and neo-romantic feeling hold a special attraction for a broad audience. This five-movement work has Glass' characteristic patterns and pulses, at least as they developed from his hard-edged, amplified minimalism of the 1970s to softer acoustic textures over the course of the 1980s, though the music is much more melodically contoured and expressive. This 2015 release by the Carducci String Quartet adds another title to the work's growing discography, and it is a wonderful performance by musicians who have a strong sympathy for Glass' idiom. It is programmed with the Suite from Dracula, a soundtrack Glass composed for the Tod Browning film, Dracula (1931), and Michael Riesman's arrangement of the Symphony No. 4, "Heroes," here presented as the String Sextet.