Gavin Bryars: The Last Days (balanescu Quartet) (1995)

Michael Nyman's three String Quartets were not conceived as a series, as they owe their origins to three very different sets of circumstances. However when the composer heard them together on the 1991 Argo recording featuring the Balanescu Quartet reissued here, he realized that the works had an unintentional but unmistakable consistency of compositional approach. Each work is built around the principle of conflict - not necessarily conflict between the instruments, as is the traditional view of the quartet medium, but conflict between sets of musical materials that appear to be at odds with each other. In the first, the conflict is between two 'found' musical objects, separated both by their cultural origins and by a distance of around 300 years. The conflict in the second is between Indian and European musical styles, while the third's comes from the process of adapting an earlier choral work into a string quartet, interspersing the original with Romanian folk music fragments.

This music, for saxophone, viola, cello and piano, was written by Gavin Bryars for ballet and involves a reworking of music from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, just as a previous collaboration, Amjad (BCGBCD10), had taken Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty as its source. The music originates in extracts from the two operas chosen by the choreographer - sometimes only forty seconds or less - but recomposed into longer pieces. A few of these, like Purcell's Dido's Lament, are well-known, others less so. But each piece, however much it is transformed, extended or modified, is recognisable from the original. The music was recorded live during the ballet's world tour.

An Auditory Survey of the Last Days of the Holocene is a fearless work. It focuses on the environment from an auditory perspective, presenting a catalogue of our created world’s sounds by tallying the noises, echoes, reverberations and refrains associated with environmental degradation that leads to climate change. The sequential recordings of traffic, machinery, drilling, fracking and more serve as a backdrop for musical responses and reflections from the piano and percussion instruments, that simultaneously respond, reflect and develop the soundscape journey from one of hostile discord to one of reconciliation and peace. The audience is faced with the sounds of our man-made environment, stripped bare of visual distractions, and taken on a journey of action and possibility. We see this as a way to reach people on a whole new, visceral level. As humans, we get to decide what sounds we take forward with us into a new era and which ones we resolve to leave behind.

An Auditory Survey of the Last Days of the Holocene is a fearless work. It focuses on the environment from an auditory perspective, presenting a catalogue of our created world’s sounds by tallying the noises, echoes, reverberations and refrains associated with environmental degradation that leads to climate change. The sequential recordings of traffic, machinery, drilling, fracking and more serve as a backdrop for musical responses and reflections from the piano and percussion instruments, that simultaneously respond, reflect and develop the soundscape journey from one of hostile discord to one of reconciliation and peace.

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Japan's leading saxophone quartet "Blue Aurora Saxophone Quartet (BASQ)", the long-awaited new recording for the first time in 6 years, is now available. The world view that unfolds with overwhelming technique and detailed ensemble, where the masters who lead the saxophone world gather, has captivated many fans since its formation.

On Gary Burton's debut release on Mack Avenue Records "Common Ground", the Grammy-winning pioneer of the four-mallet technique of playing the vibes is not only delivering his first studio album since 2005, but is also introducing his latest band. Well-known throughout his five-decade career for his quartets (beginning with his 1967 group featuring Larry Coryell, Roy Haynes and Steve Swallow), Burton is returning to the configuration for the first time since the mid 90s. He expresses great enthusiasm for the new band's alchemy. I've always liked the vibraphone-guitar sound, says Burton, whose masterful vibes glisten throughout Common Ground. It's something that I discovered when Nashville country guitarist Hank Garland invited me in the 60s to record with him. The sound of the two instruments together has an ideal timbre and coolness.

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