Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music
I remembered way back as a kid hearing "Hocus Pocus" on the radio, this must be around 1979 or 1980, on the FM dial. Around 1989, I heard this song again and found out it was "Hocus Pocus" and the group was called FOCUS.
Following on from Victor Kissine’s luminous orchestration of Schubert’s String Quartet in G Major (ECM 1883) and his own “Zerkalo” with Kremer and friends (ECM 2202), here is the first ECM album devoted entirely to the compositions of the composer from St. Petersburg. The flavour of the sea pervades the three recent compositions heard here, variously inspired by the poetry of Mandelstam and Brodsky: the concerto for piano and string orchestra “Between Two Waves”, the Duo (After Osip Mandelstam) for viola and violoncello, and “Barcarola” for violin, string orchestra and percussion. All three pieces are dedicated to the collaborating players – Gidon Kremer and the musicians of Kremerata Baltica.
"Between Two Waves" marks the latest chapter in the story of GoGo Penguin. Formed in 2012, GoGo Penguin's sophomore album v2.0 was nominated in 2014 for the Mercury Music Prize and in 2016, in addition to playing Coachella, the trio signed to Blue Note Records, releasing a trio of acclaimed albums: Man Made Object, A Humdrum Star and GoGo Penguin, as well as two EPs and a remix album GGP/RMX. They were Blue Note’s best-selling contemporary instrumental artists and sold in excess of 300,000 albums.