On June 22, Maison Krug Champagne invited a group of tanned and tattooed influencer types (plus a few journalists) to taste their champagnes at the Reethaus, a sleek “space for radical presence” on the bank of Berlin’s river Spree. Accompanying the three-part cuvée—“Krug A ‘Clarity,’” “Krug B ‘Ensemble,’” and “Krug C ‘Sinfonia’”—was music by the […]
Tag: Weird & Wonderful
Posted inEssay
Inside the Sound of the Swarm
“The granular dimension of time is the secret to bug music. I don’t just mean the music bugs make, but something wider and deeper, the ‘bug music’ aspect of life, or the bug and the glitch hiding inside all music.”—David Rothenberg The peripatetic, protosurrealist writer and translator Lafcadio Hearn had a severe case of myopia. […]
Posted inRankings & Roundups
(Almost) Every Piece by Darius Milhaud, Ranked
“The complete Milhaud? Won’t you be holed up in a bunker for six months?” said a friend when I mentioned this project. If people know one thing about Darius Milhaud, it is that he was one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His catalogue includes 443 opus numbers, composed between 1910 and […]
Posted inEssay
Eccentric Physics
Set and Setting It was Wednesday, early October. I had borrowed a friend’s kitchen to make 100 servings of strudel for my six-year-old son’s school event, and I was listening to John Cage’s “Music of Changes,” which takes form through chance operations and the wisdom of the I Ching. Earlier in the morning, I’d made […]
Posted inReport
“A Call To Action, Disguised As A Symphony”
At the Barbican Centre in early May, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), the City of London Choir and London Voices premiered a 49-minute piece titled “Lim Cosmic Rhapsody.” Their recording of the piece, which featured pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, had just been released on Decca Classics, and the performance marked the first outing for score, published […]
Posted inEssay
The Long and Winding Road
It didn’t take long for a planning fail to become a planning win. As an American who’s lived in the UK for almost 13 years, booking trips to visit family should have been second nature, but I’d screwed up my return flight booking between Austin and Glasgow, and had no choice but to rebook entirely, […]
Posted inEssay
The Sounds of Smiling
When I’m anxious, I calm myself by listening to Satie’s “Gymnopedies.” When I’m looking to focus, I turn on András Schiff’s rendition of “The Well-Tempered Clavier.” Lately, I’ve been looking to escape the tumult of life in Trump’s America—can it only be April?—longing for a simpler time. And so I’ve found my way back to […]
Posted inInterview
“Like ‘The Archers’ On Speed”
It’s been a decade since Jennifer Walshe described “The New Discipline” in a program text for Borealis Festival. This was not a school or a style, but a way of working that she saw shared across music she was witnessing, “where the physical, theatrical and visual aspects are as important as the sonic.” The text […]
Posted inPlaylist
A Classical Kink Playlist
What does kink sound like in music? After posing the question to myself, I felt slightly paralyzed, so I set out on a walk with a friend, who sometimes sends me links to iconoclastic piano pieces. I thought he could be a kind of kinky music sensei. “Have you listened to any ‘kinky’ music lately?” […]
Posted inRankings & Roundups
Crisp Dinner
Picture the scene: Work finishes at 5, 5:30, maybe later. The concert starts at 7:30, and could go on for hours. What are you doing about eating? We asked people in the business of attending concerts exactly that. On the Whole Problem John Andrews, conductor Personally, I get ridiculously hangry if I don’t eat. I […]