Robyn Birdwell

After the debacle that was the making of 1982's Groovy Decay, Robyn Hitchcock briefly retired from music, and when he returned it was with an album that offered a thoroughly uncompromised vision of Hitchcock's imagination. Released in 1984, I Often Dream of Trains was a primarily acoustic set with Hitchcock handling nearly all the instruments and vocals by himself; the tone is spare compared to the full-on rock & roll of his recordings with the Soft Boys or his solo debut, Black Snake Diamond Role, but the curious beauty of Hitchcock's melodies is every bit as striking in these stripped-down sessions, and the surreal imagery of "Flavour of Night," "Trams of Old London," and the title song comes to vivid and enchanting life. Hitchcock's off-kilter wit has rarely been as effective as it is on this album; the jaunty harmonies of "Uncorrected Personality Traits" are the ideal complement for the song's psychobabble, "Sounds Great When You're Dead" manages to be funny and a bit disturbing at once, and the drunken campfire singalong of "Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus" was joyously sloppy enough to inspire a cover by the Replacements.

After the stripped-back collection I Often Dream of Trains, Robyn Hitchcock slowly formed a backing band called the Egyptians with ex-Soft Boys Andy Metcalfe and Morris Windsor, and keyboardist Roger Jackson over the course of the next year. Fegmania!, the Egyptians' first album, was a distinct departure from both the Soft Boys and Hitchcock's previous solo work, featuring layered, intertwining guitars and keyboards that created lush and thick sonic textures. Even with the more detailed arrangements, the songs remained twitchy and off-kilter, with melodies that usually went in willfully unpredictable directions, yet remained catchy all the while. Fegmania! was Hitchcock's most consistent work to date, featuring such highlights as the Eastern-tinged "Egyptian Cream", and the creepy "My Wife & My Dead Wife", and the relatively straightforward "The Man with the Lightbulb Head".

Soprano Robyn Allegra Parton and pianist Simon Lepper perform an album inspired by the burnished gold leaf and sensual contours of Klimt’s Art-Nouveau ‘Vienna Secession’ movement, with music reflecting that aesthetic including songs by Richard Strauss, Alma Mahler, Johanna Muller-Hermann, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alban Berg and Joseph Marx – a composer about whom Lepper recently curated a series at Wigmore Hall. These are works that occupy a fascinating realm between the romantic and the modern, so that sensuous, brooding and dark-hued atmospheres are blended with rich textures and radiant harmonies. Described by Opernwelt as ‘captivating, astonishing, overwhelming’, award-winning British soprano Robyn Allegra Parton specialises in this repertoire, and Simon Lepper is one of the finest song accompanists in the world.

The first two works are for viola and a battery of percussion instruments. Pourtinade, in nine sections with highly descriptive titles whose order is decided by the performers, elicits every possible sound and color effect from the viola, and an extraordinary range of blending and contrasting textural timbres from the instrumental combinations. "Redwood," inspired by Japanese woodcuts, uses the percussion as melody instruments; often it seems incredible that a single player can produce such a wealth of sounds. Opening softly and mysteriously, it becomes quite active, and then a beautiful viola solo fades away. The Shostakovich Sonata, written in the shadow of death, is heartbreakingly moving in its lamentatious mournfulness and turbulently desperate outbursts. The piano texture is pared down to skeletal spareness; the viola mourns in the dark low register and soars radiantly up high. The Scherzo is defiantly sardonic; the Finale, full of quotes from Beethoven, ends in resignation. The playing is beautiful and projects the changing moods with a riveting, inwardly experienced expressiveness.

These songs were mostly recorded in 2013 as demos for "The Man Upstairs". These tracks were recorded in Cardiff by Charlie Francis in his attic, and in many cases didn’t survive being re-cut with Joe Boyd in London when it came to session time. The concept for "The Man Upstairs" was that Joe and I make a kind of Judy Collins 1965-era album: half covers, half originals. That method has been extended for this limited edition outtake album.

Kim Kashkashian brings Armenia’s leading contemporary composer to ECM New Series in a programme that also explores the roots of Armenian music. Compositions by Tigran Mansurian for viola and percussion, played by Kashkashian and Robyn Schulkowsky, receive their premiere recordings here, and frame a selection of Mansurian’s arrangements of the music of Komitas.