Unrest Rei Harakami

BIS has done it again! If you’ve been collecting any of the marvelous unknown composers that this label has been advocating over the years, including Tubin, Tveitt, Klami, or (from this source) Guarnieri, then you’re going to love this fabulous new disc of music by Brazilian composer Francisco Mignone (1897-1986). He’s best known today for his shorter piano pieces, which appear on numerous Latin American keyboard music collections–but there’s much more to him than that. The son of Italian immigrants, Mignone’s music sounds like an Afro-Brazilian homage to Respighi, Puccini, and Stravinsky–but as happens so often in these cases, whatever he may lack in sheer originality he more than makes up for in melodic spontaneity and in finding a mix of ingredients that is his alone. This disc, which shows the work of a superb craftsman and an orchestrator every bit on the level of the three composers just mentioned, only whets the appetite for more–much more.

On his first full-fledged solo album, Byrne indulges his fascination with Latin and South American musical styles, employing a variety of native musicians but mixing up the sounds to suit his own distinctly non-purist vision and singing over the tracks the same kind of witty, oddball lyrics found on Talking Heads albums…

By this point Henry Cow consisted of guitarist Fred Frith, drummer Chris Cutler, bassist John Greaves, keyboardist Tim Hodgkinson, and, of particular importance to the band's sound at this point, bassoonist Lindsay Cooper. As is so often the case with avant-garde rock & roll, it's the composed pieces that work best, and the fact that Frith is responsible for the majority of them is significant…

Unrest is a new collection of masterly collages from the hand of Erik Honoré in which he captures, with absolute precision, the moods and tonal imagery of improvisations and weaves them together in a personal and evocative musical process. He has been joined by an impressive array of Norwegian improvisational musicians: Sidsel Endresen, Eivind Aarset, Arve Henriksen, Stian Westerhus and many others.

These singers harmonize through mysterious songs about strange and ordinary, things–through beautiful female lead singing, with fascinating percussion and horn background, and bass that is perfect to balance the variety of harmonies. This is not like Manhattan Transfer, no, it is more personal, more immediate. The impression is latin and contemplative, while being no-nonsense and straightforward in expression. It is a wonderful mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar, the new and the understandable.

Unrest is a new collection of masterly collages from the hand of Erik Honoré in which he captures, with absolute precision, the moods and tonal imagery of improvisations and weaves them together in a personal and evocative musical process. He has been joined by an impressive array of Norwegian improvisational musicians: Sidsel Endresen, Eivind Aarset, Arve Henriksen, Stian Westerhus and many others.