The.brass.notebook

Without any obvious keystone event, Biota – who started recording in the late 1970’s as the Mnemonist Orchestra – have quietly become a musical fixture, honoured for their uniquely, abstract, layered, polystylistic approach to musical construction - deaf to fashion or possible sales. And it seems, paradoxically, to have been just this art-orientated commercial indifference that has slowly won them loyal followers and surprisingly respectable sales. Now, for a wider audience - and at a congenial price - this box collects five representative releases that span their discography and track the radical evolution of their crystalline aesthetic – with added documentation, a band history, insights into their work process, and a full-length bonus CD embroidered from their archive of rare and unreleased material. Contents: Funnel to a Thread, Half a True Day, Invisible Map, Object Holder and Gyromancy (recorded as the Mnemonist Orchestra), and the box-only bonus Counterbalance.

Born in Singapore in 1986, and currently based in Japan, Wong’s career has from the outset seen him darting back and forth between Asia and Europe. His connection with Germany goes especially deep, beginning in Bamberg at the Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition, where he won first prize in 2016. His first full-time conducting role was just 40 miles away, at the Nuremberg Symphony, serving as their Chief Conductor from 2018 to 2022. Back on his home continent, since 2021 Wong has been closely associated with the Japan Philharmonic, initially as Principal Guest Conductor, becoming their Chief Conductor this year. (Earlier this summer, Wong was also appointed Principal Conductor of The Hallé in Manchester, beginning in autumn 2024.)