Colors of Minimal Music

"I’m going to talk about the works in this CD. It includes CIRCUIT I and CIRCUIT III, they belong to the CIRCUIT series”. CIRCUIT II was included in my "Electronic Works vol.1. I’m going to explain for those people who don’t know the "Works vol.1”. In the series of electronic music entitled CIRCUIT, the next work is created using the material from the previous one. At first I burn the precious CD into two CDRs, next I cross them and make new CIRCUIT music by using two CD-J players. Since this operation can be continued forever, CIRCUIT IV will be created by multiplying CIRCUIT III in the future. This series can be listened to on its own, but it would be interesting to compare it with the previous one or the next one. Since the material is the same, you will hear the same kind of sound, but in some cases, it may be completely transformed, and in other cases, it may remain the same…"

Even with 15 other versions of Rimsky's masterpiece of orchestral virtuosity to choose from — some in the top flight — this was recognized from the first as one of the most rewarding, thanks largely to Krebbers's exceptionally sweet, gently appealing and bewitching personification of the story - spinning Scheherazade and to Kondrashin's skill in pacing and shaping movements as a whole, relating the diverse tempos and building up tension and dynamics by careful control so as to create climaxes of thrilling intensity and power. the 'shipwreck' finale, in particular, was overwhelming; and this was achieved without resorting to the ultra - fast tempos adopted by some conductors to whip up excitement. The Concertgebouw's crisp, sonorous and sensitive playing (full marks both to the splendid strings and to the wind soloists) was caught with the utmost fidelity; but the Compact Disc's total exclusion even of minimal extraneous background now marks a still further improvement, as can be judged by the dead silence against which Scheherazade's pleadings are heard. The final coda is ravishingly beautiful.

"Love Loops" is a minimal acoustic masterpiece crafted by the talented multi-instrumentalist, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, who based in San Francisco, and is also a core member of several bands like Tarentel, The Alps, The Holy See and many more. In 2000, after a much needed break from his tour schedule with Tarental, Jefre felt that it was the right time for him to walk the path of solo music making. And this has lead to the forming of Colophon, the solo moniker of Jefre Cantu-Ledesma…

Funèbre stands out in the New Series both for its due attention to German composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905-1963) and for welcoming conductor Christoph Poppen and the Munich Chamber Orchestra into the ECM fold. The latter have since gone on to record a number of pivotal records for the label, including the all-Scelsi program Natura Renovatur and the Bach/Webern crossover project Ricercar. Here they are joined by violinist Isabelle Faust, the Petersen String Quartet, and clarinetist Paul Meyer for a shuffling of dark, darker, and darkest.