Mode Records

NEW on Mode Records, Volume 54 of the Cage Edition! FIRST RECORDING of the unpublished MORTON FELDMAN arrangement of CAGE'S "CHEAP IMITATION" with AKI TAKAHASHI! John CAGE: Cage Edition Vol. 54; The Works for Piano 11: Cheap Imitation (for piano solo)...Continue reading

A blast from the past: PAUL KOONCE's WALKABOUT AND BACK reviewed on La Folia! Paul KOONCE Walkabout (1998); Hothouse (1992); Pins (1996); The Flywheel Dream (1994). mode 90... CD: $14.99 + shipping CD quality download with PDF from Mode $12 https://moderecords.com/catalog/090koonce/ Bandcamp: https://moderecords.bandcamp.com//walkabout-and-back-elect Four intensely detailed, animated electroacoustic pieces in which a car horn might transform into an oboe, or a typewriter into bongos. YES. Ethelbert Nevin, LaFolia, September 2017 https://www.lafolia.com/used-bin-troll-tweets-bb/

RESPONSES TO IVES performed by pianist HEATHER O'DONNELL was reviewed in La Folia! I'm very pleased to see that Ethelbert Nevin's capsule review from February 2015 was republished! Responses to Ives. ... Charles IVES: Study No. 21: Some Southpaw Pitching! (1909?); Set of Five Take-Offs (1906?); Moderato and Largo from Four Transcriptions from Emerson (1920s?); Study No. 9: The Anti-Abolitionist Riots in the 1830’s and 1840’s (1908-09?); London Bridge is Fallen Down! (1891?) Walter ZIMMERMANN: the missing nail at the river (2003-04). Michael FINNISSY: Song of Myself (2003). James TENNEY: Essay (after a sonata) (2003). Sidney CORBETT: The Celestial Potato Fields (2004). Oliver SCHNELLER: And tomorrow (2004). Heather O’Donnell (pno). mode 211 (1 CD) How did I overlook such a powerful recital? Visionary Ives inspired several new works (some busy inside, or add toy piano, electronics). YES. CD $14.99 + shipping CD quality download with PDFs from Mode $12 Or from the usual suspects https://moderecords.com/catalog/211odonnell/

Your's truly, BRIAN BRANDT is interviewed by LAURA KUHN on the next podcast of ALL THINGS CAGE! This Saturday, April 3rd, 7-8pm Go to this link and then click on the AUDIO button: https://wavefarm.org/radio/wgxc/schedule/yzx6mb... Laura Kuhn, director of The John Cage Trust, has been making these podcasts around John Cage for a while on WGXC 90.7-FM, from the Hudson Valley, NY. This week I am pleased to say that it is my turn. Please give a listen and also check out the previous episodes of ALL THINGS CAGE while you are there. Enjoy!

ROGER REYNOLDS' "COMPLETE WORKS FOR CELLO" reviewed in LAFOLIA! Thoughts, Places, Dreams (2013)1; Colombi Daydream (2010)2; Focus a beam, emptied of thinking, outward (1989)3; imagE/cello (2007)4; ... imAge/cello (2007)5; Process and Passion (2002)6; A Crimson Path (2000-02)7. Alexis Descharmes1,2,3,4,5,6,7 (vlc), Ensemble Court-circuit1, Jean Deroyer1 (cond.), Nicolas Miribel6 (vln), Frédéric Voisin6 (electronics), Sébastian Vichard7 (pno), Roger Reynolds (speaker). mode 277/78 (2 CDs) 2-CD set $19.99 + shipping from Mode CD quality download with PDF from Mode $12 https://moderecords.com/catalog/277-278-reynolds/ Bandcamp: https://moderecords.bandcamp.com//complete-cello-works-mod Or through the usual suspects. This significant double-set offers all of Reynolds’ cello works ranging from the compact contrasting solos imagE/cello and imAge/cello to heftier works requiring accompanying ensembles. Process and Passion for violin, cello and computer-processed sound attracts immediately with intense details. Descharmes invests totally in these pieces of delightful strangeness, having closely collaborated with Reynolds for several years. Also included are the composer reading the influencing texts: James Merrill for the solo Focus a beam, emptied of thinking, outward and Aeschylus for Process and Passion and the cello-piano duo A Crimson Path. Colombi Daydream derives structure and mood from one of the earliest known cello works, Giuseppi Colombi’s Chiacona, and is one of 31 multi-composer variations, Mystery Variations, commissioned for Anssi Karttunen’s 50th birthday. Grant Chu Covell, LaFolia, July 2016 https://www.lafolia.com/string-theory-19-mostly-cello/

Today is another BANDCAMP FRIDAY. Take advantage with a special digital discount on the complete SCELSI EDITION and MORE! To celebrate this Bandcamp Friday, Mode is offering the Complete SCELSI EDITION, all 10 volumes, digitally at 20% off if purchased together. For more info, see: https://giacintoscelsi.bandcamp.com//scelsi-edition-10-the... Mode is also releasing its first MIXTAPE almost 3 hours of music from various Mode releases specially selected by composer and Mode's Bandcamp webmaster MATT WELLINS. Download available for $12 on this Bandcamp Friday. Check it out: https://moderecords.bandcamp.com/album/mode-mixtape-1 Bandcamp Fridays the monthly event in which the music distribution service waives its cut of revenue sales for one day For 24 hours, 100 per cent of revenue from purchases of music and merchandise on Bandcamp went directly to artists and labels. https://moderecords.bandcamp.com/

NEW ARDITTI QUARTET WEBSITE! The ever amazing Arditti Quartet have launched their new website: http://ardittiquartet.com/ with an amazing discography to browse through, among other things. You'll find quartets, and also Irvine Arditti's, Mode recordings of Cage, Carter, Pape, Paredes and much more among other gems.... And you can visit the Arditti on their dedicated Mode page too: https://moderecords.com/profiles/irvinearditti/ https://moderecords.com/profiles/ardittiquartet/ See more

A blast from the past, republished... Mode's HELMUT LACHENMANN release reviewed in La Folia! zwei Gefühle and solo works Helmut Lachenmann (narrator & piano), Lauren Radnofsky (cello), Ensemble Signal/Brad Lubman, conductor... mode 252 CD $14.99 + shipping DVD (with full video + interview, 5.1 surround) $19.99 + shipping CD quality download from Mode with PDFs $12 https://moderecords.com/catalog/252_lachenmanncd/ Bandcamp: https://moderecords.bandcamp.com//zwei-gef-hle-and-solo-wo Even after bumping into derivatives and less artful followers, Lachenmann’s original acerbic brittleness still delights after a long absence. His superbly intense music progresses at multiple planes and rates. The uncanny sounds are not one-off tricks but thought-through conclusions consummately notated. This release is a double treat as Lachenmann appears as speaker in Zwei Gefühle and plays the piano in Wiegenmusik, Guero and the Ein Kinderspiel collection. There are other releases where the composer spits out the abstract phonetic syllables (Accord 204852 [1995], Kairos 0012202KAI [2001] and ECM 1789 [2004]) or strums the keys for Guero (Montaigne MO 782075 [1995], also including Wiegenmusik and Ein Kinderspiel). Guero and Pression are now decades old. Their startling techniques have become overused and their contradictory stances defused. Guero involves touching the keys, the strings and the case. Anything but traditionally depressing the ivories. Starting from near silence, Pression enthusiastically eschews traditional cello sounds and soon lands on excruciatingly coarse grinding before exploring all manner of wrong noises. The children’s pieces are for the precocious child who might not know what to expect from the big wooden box with 88 teeth. They’re actually not for children, but for adults who might remember those early childhood experiences of music creation. Often Lachenmann favors the highest register where pitches compete with the sound of felt-covered wooden hammers striking metal strings. In Falscher Chinese and Filter-Schaukel (False Chinese and Filter Swing) there is the rediscovery that if the hands don’t play together, they can affect the sounds of chords and resonance. Grant Chu Covell, la folia, December 2017 https://www.lafolia.com/unsolicited-remarks/

AYMAN FANOUS - FRANCES MARIE UITTI's 'NEGOUM" reviewed in The New York City Jazz Record! "...it’s a process of mental elimination, resulting in music of astonishing subtlety." mode 316... $14.99 CD plus shipping $12 CD quality download with PDFs direct from Mode https://moderecords.com/catalog/316fanous/ Bandcamp: https://moderecords.bandcamp.com/album/negoum-mode316 This album is the first studio recording of two seemingly disparate virtuosiEgyptian-born, New York-based bouzouki/classical guitar player Ayman Fanous and American, France-based cellist Frances-Marie Uittisharing a dialogue of traditions and their unraveling. In the former vein, Fanous brings his knowledge of taksim (a style of melodic improvisation prevalent in Middle Eastern music) and Uitti hers of classical precision while in the latter both seem to become increasingly connected as they drift further from canonical moorings. In Uitti’s duets with bouzouki, such as the opening 16 minutes that are Adhara, self-examination prevails. As for the tracks featuring guitar in place of bouzouki, one senses that something beyond magical is taking place. Rather, it’s a process of mental elimination, resulting in music of astonishing subtlety. For half the program, Uitti employs a two-bow technique of her own innovation. But one might never know it because she plays with such an integrated mode of expression that her gestures are organic, soulful. Every line stands precisely where it should be standing and rests where it should be resting. Fanous approaches the primal pluck with two rural exhalations for every urban inhalation, blending Western and non-Western persuasions without fraying a stitch. While highlights may be pointed outamong them the quasi-triptych of Alnitac, Megrez and Alioth at album centerwhat we have here is something greater than the sum of its parts. These are musicians far less interested in defining anything in particular than in cracking open the very concept of definition like an egg and frying it on the pans of their instruments until its savor curls up to the fortunate listener. Proof that dualism needn’t be a constant negotiation of dominance but rather a cyclical process of translation by which the original utterance and its re-rendering become indistinguishable to the point of nourishing a universal form of communication. Tyran Grillo, New York Jazz Record, February 2020

MESSIAEN's "HARAWI" with SARAH MARIA SUN and STEFKA PERIFANOVA featured on orchestergraben.com! "One of the exciting characteristics of this recording is the strong bond that the two musicians reveal. ... What makes this recording so unique that if you listen to it for a long time you even get the impression that Sarah Maria Sun and Stefka Perifanova are filling Messiaen's work with their own stories and are thus continuing to paint the original painting." Sarah Maria Sun, s...Continue reading

NY TIMES Classical Critic ANTHONY TOMMASSINI embraces the joys of COLLECTING PHYSICAL MUSIC! Bravo Mr. Tommassini, very well said. My hat is off to you! Recently I had two LP cabinets made to hold 2,400 (more) vinyl records. No, the collection is not going anywhere...... I am not concerned about the ecological dilemma of CDs. IF people bought a CD and kept it or if they gifted unwanted ones to others or traded them in at used shops said CDs would not have to be "recycled." Rather, they would continue to be "enjoyed." You can blame any ecological issues regarding CDs to streaming services, like Spotify, and their attempt to render them useless. And, BTW, I did not purge my LP collection when CDs came into fashion. I kept them too, though many went into storage. They also were not thrown away. And now they're fashionable again! https://www.nytimes.com//classical-music-recordings-cds.ht