Ghost Rider Make Us Stronger

On this new recording from Orange Mountain Music, pianist Paul Barnes and renowned string quartet Brooklyn Rider collaborate on a new album of music by Philip Glass including two world premiere recordings of major works. The album begins with Philip Glass's 2018 Piano Quintet 'Annunciation' based on the 'Hymn of the Annunciation' from the Greek Orthodox tradition.

Brooklyn Rider is a string quartet based in Brooklyn led by violinist Johnny Gandelsman and including violinist Colin and cellist Eric Jacobsen who are among the founder-brothers of the orchestra known as the Knights; the group is filled out by violist Nicholas Cords. Passport is Brooklyn Rider's debut album and also the first issue on Gandelsman's label In a Circle Records, named after a concert series Gandelsman curated beginning in 2003.

Spectral Music is Ghost Rhythms’ second release on Cuneiform Records after 2019’s Live at Yoshiwara, a live album consisting almost entirely of new material, and is their sixth full-length studio effort. After delegating much of the writing on Yoshiwara to their bandmates, the band’s leaders, drummer Xavier Gélard and pianist Camille Petit were back firmly at the helm.
Gélard had toyed with the idea of using the title Spectral Music for a while, but it only began to make sense conceptually during the writing process. However, the real theme of the album, remoteness and telepathy, came late in the process. The parallel with the current Covid crisis was of course not lost on Gélard and Petit…

This 65 minute LP weaves themes of love, heartbreak, and betrayal into monolithic synth-driven space-rock, with inspiration as diverse as Nine Inch Nails, Sigur Ros, Vangelis and Pink Floyd. Writer and producer Christopher Bono utilizes his classical background to sculpt this expansive and engaging series of compositions, contrasting heavy walls of sound with ambient passages, contemporary classical and experimental electronic influences. Bono collaborated with Thomas Pridgen, whose drumming credits include the likes of The Mars Volta, Trash Talk, Suicidal Tendencies and Memorials.