Flight International From 17 23 January 2017

On this exciting release, Finland’s leading contemporary music professionals play poetry-inspired chamber music by Outi Tarkiainen. The works are tinged with the mythical, archaic colors of the North intermixed with the translucency of contemporary music, the sensuality of poetry and the force of tradition. The distinctive recording creates a delicate, telling synthesis of lyricism and contemporary music. Outi Tarkiainen is one of a new generation of composers whose work bears intense witness to the world around it and whose music engages audiences while advancing the art form without compromise. “I see music as a force of nature,” Outi has said, “that can flood over a person and even change entire destinies.” Among the renowned artists featured are soprano Tuuli Lindeberg, accordionist Veli Kujala, and the Kamus String Quartet.

Guiding the undulating, polyrhythmic, genre-ambiguous flow of drummer Makaya McCraven's ever-evolving "organic beat music," is a strategy not far removed from the one employed by Teo Macero and Miles Davis on Bitches Brew and subsequent dates: Here, moments from continuous improvised performances are digitally looped, cut, spliced, and edited into entirely new compositions. McCraven has been developing the approach for some time, though it came to fruition on 2015's brilliant In the Moment, culled from nearly 48 hours of live improvised performance at a single venue over a year, then processed and remixed into 19 individual pieces. McCraven takes a leap further out on the double-length Universal Beings. The set was recorded in four cities (New York, Chicago, London, and Los Angeles) with four ensembles. The players on these include bassist and fellow Chicagoan Junius Paul, cellist and former Chicagoan Tomeka Reid, U.K.-based saxophonists Nubya Garcia and Shabaka Hutchings, L.A. violist/arranger Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, percussionist Carlos Nino, and Chicago ex-pat and current Angeleno guitarist Jeff Parker, to name a few.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s two Piano Concertos form a contrasting pair. Concerto No 1, written in 1927, is a vivid and witty example of his romantic spirit, exquisite melodies and rich yet transparent orchestration. Concerto No 2, composed a decade later, is a darker, more dramatic and virtuosic work. The deeply-felt and dreamlike slow movement and passionate finale are tinged with bleak moments of sombre agitation, suggestive of unfolding tragic events with the imminent introduction of the Fascist Racial Laws that led Castelnuovo-Tedesco to seek exile in the USA in 1939. The Four Dances from ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’, part of the composer’s recurring fascination for the art of Shakespeare, are atmospheric, richly characterised and hugely enjoyable. This is their first performance and recording.