A letter from Aerocade Music founder Meerenai Shim

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Dear Aerocade Music supporters,

I’m proud to announce that Aerocade Music, Inc., a non-profit corporation, was formed this summer to continue the mission of helping independent musicians distribute their music. This mission started in 2015, when Aerocade Music, LLC was established. Initially, it was supposed to be a vanity label to release my own projects. As soon as I announced the label I was approached by producer/engineer Lanier Sammons who was seeking a label for the Post-Haste Reed Duo album he was producing. I signed up to distribute that Post-Haste Reed Duo album and Aerocade Music became a regular micro-label for other independent classical music-adjacent musicians.

The first Post-Haste Reed Duo album released on Aerocade Music.

Since 2015, I have learned a few things and figured out a system to keep this small label going, but you can only go so far by doing things alone. In order to keep Aerocade going for the long haul, I asked some close colleagues for advice on starting a non-profit so that this label can support musicians well into the future. With guidance from Brent Miller (board treasurer), Lanier Sammons (board secretary), Elizabeth Robinson (board member), and For Purpose Law Group, Aerocade Music, Inc. was formed.

I’m actively working on tying up loose ends and closing up the LLC by the end of this year. The few assets belonging to the LLC are being donated or will be donated to the new Aerocade Music Inc.

Going forward, Aerocade will still be a tiny label since we don’t have any employees. It will still be my labor of love and my main volunteer activity. (I hope Aerocade can hire an Executive Director one day to take over most of the day-to-day tasks. You can help make that happen by donating!) In 2025 we will celebrate Aerocade Music’s 10th anniversary and the 1st birthday of Aerocade Music, Inc. by releasing four albums by new and current Aerocade Artists! We will also have a party in San Francisco sometime in March 2025 so please keep an eye out for that event.

Thank you for buying our albums and listening to our releases. Music and art is just as important today as it ever was. It’s an essential part of humanity. Even if capitalism doesn’t value music, we can’t live without it. If you’ve read this far into my letter, you probably think music is important too. There are many ways you can help get new music out into the world:

• Keep making music yourself.

• If you hear something you like, share those music links with your network.

• Buy recorded music on your favorite format or buy merch from artists.

• Go to concerts and take a friend.

• Donate to Aerocade Music, Inc. and other organizations working on getting more music out to the public.

Even if no one listened, I’ll still be making music, but it’s nice to know you are out there listening once in a while. Thank you for your continued support for Aerocade Music. I’m so excited for the future!

Sincerely,

Meerenai

Meerenai Shim, Board President
Aerocade Music, Inc.

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Aerocade Music Inc is a charitable not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation, tax ID number 99-4229727.

Textura Reviews “Aviary” by Elizabeth Robinson

One imagines Takemitsu would be captivated by Aviary, and were he still with us Messiaen would no doubt have the collection on repeat too. Credit Robinson for crafting an album filled with one delightful moment after another, but credit also her flute-playing partners for helping to generate its harmonic sound world and the composers for giving them wonderful material to perform. For flute lovers especially, the album's a must-have, but its appeal is hardly exclusive to a single group.

Read the rest of the thoughtful review on Textura.org!

Aviary is reviewed in the current issue of The Flutist Quarterly:

“Robinson is joined by Emlyn Johnson, Carmen A. Lemoine, Erin K. Murphy, and Nicole Riner for the ensemble tracks, and the group’s playing is magnificent, with gorgeous blend, impeccable intonation, and complementary vibrato between the players. They seem to be uniformly comfortable with the many extended techniques required, and their sensitive and enthusiastic interpretation brings this music to life in a satisfying, exciting way. Particularly notable is Robinson’s piccolo playing, which is lively and virtuosic with a flexible delicacy. The low flutes in the “Featherbrained” movement of Osberg’s Fowl Play” have no trouble taking the spotlight with their melodies, building a rich, harmonic sound world that is even more exciting in the section of pizzicato tonguing about halfway through the movement.

Aviary is worth a listen, and these composers and performers are definitely worth watching.”

- Jessica Dunnavant, The Flutist Quarterly

Thank you Jessica Dunnavant and The Flutist Quarterly! If you’re a member of the National Flute Association, read the rest of the review here.

Listen to the album here.

This post is adapted from Meerenai Shim’s blog (with permission).

In a previous blog post, I wrote about how to estimate the cost of producing an album/CD. In that post, I told readers to ask around for recommendations to find a good recording engineer or studio. Now, I feel like going with recommendations alone is not adequate. I’m revisiting this topic because I’ve experienced my share of disappointing experiences with engineers and studios in various locations and types of recording locations all over the country. I’ve produced 3 of my own solo albums plus 3 albums for other artists. I’ve co-produced 2 albums with my chamber ensembles, and a handful of singles/EPs. I’ve also seen (heard) some poorly engineered recordings when I evaluated recordings for release on my record label, Aerocade Music. I’ve had fantastic and terrible experiences in university settings. I’ve had wonderful and frightening experiences in small studios. My experiences with larger studios have been generally positive. I’ve worked with diligent, well-supervised student engineers-in-training and I’ve worked with terribly unqualified and overrated “professional” engineers.

The audience for this current blog post is Classical Music performers in the USA. I am also writing as if you are planning on recording a full-length album that you are self-producing and self-financing (with crowdsourcing or savings, etc.)

Don’t be like this squirrel. Read the rest of this post to learn how to invest your acorns well.

All studios come with a house engineer (or several). Some studios only allow certain engineers to record there. Many of the larger commercial studios (as opposed to the educational institutions and home recording studios) will allow outside engineers to record projects there. You can also hire an engineer to bring their gear and record you at a non-studio venue like a concert hall or church. Any of these scenarios can be legit and wonderful. Read on for some ideas on how to audition a recording engineer or studio.

Book a session. Record something (one piece or one movement) with the engineer or studio you are auditioning. This is the best way to tell if this person/place is right for you.

If a studio or engineer asks you to sign a contract other than acknowledging a simple outline of services offered, cancellation policies/fees, and the price list, this is HIGHLY IRREGULAR. You are self-producing and financing this album and hiring this engineer/studio for their time - on a “work for hire” basis. You have no legal or fiscal obligation to the studio or engineer beyond the recording time agreed to and the fees associated with that. You do not owe your engineer/studio any residuals or royalties, etc. If your studio or engineer is offering a package deal like a production or label services deal, that’s a whole different animal and there’s a whole other set of things to consider for those deals. This blog post will not help you evaluate those package deals. However, I will say that if you’re considering such a package deal, don’t sign anything until you do a lot more research and talk to other artists who have signed the same exact deal you’re considering. Don’t rely only on word-of-mouth and reputation. Ask to do a trial recording session like the one I’m suggesting in this blog post.

Ask all the questions you may have. Don’t assume they will explain as you go. Don’t worry about annoying the studio or engineer with your question. If your questions are genuine, and you’re not intentionally trying to be annoying, ask away. The way the staff/engineer responds to your questions will tell you a lot about if this studio/engineer is right for you. Are they patiently answering your questions? Did they ask you about what you’re trying to achieve during your session? Are they good listeners? Do you like the communication style of the studio staff/engineer?

Bring an external hard drive with you to your session and ask that they give you a copy of the entire ProTools* session at the end of your recording day. (Best practice: ALWAYS get a copy of that day’s work on your external hard drive. The studio or engineer may have it set up so that your session files are automatically uploaded to the cloud for you and that’s awesome, but it’s OK to be paranoid and want an extra copy on your hard drive.) If they give you any pushback on putting a copy of the session files on your hard drive, THIS IS A RED FLAG. 

*ProTools: Why? There’s nothing wrong with using another Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) to record. But I recommend a studio/engineer that uses ProTools because if you need to take the work you started with one engineer and finish it with another, using the same DAW will save you a lot of time because most professional studios/engineers use ProTools. 

Before they setup the microphones, the engineer should listen to you play up close, and from a bit away. They are putting their ears where they might place a microphone. If I’m playing cello, I’d expect the engineer to get on their knees to listen to my cello from around the bridge or F holes. (If they’re a house engineer recording you on the house piano while you’re playing conventional repertoire, I don’t expect them to put their head under the lid.)

After they set up all the microphones, they will record a sample of your playing. They should ask you to listen to the sample to see if the sound they captured is how you want it to sound. If you’re not sure, that’s OK. Just say so. The engineer can try other mic combinations or explain, based on their experience, whether this is a good sound for your instrument or the type of music you’re recording that day. You can ask for another option like different microphones or a different mix between the mics. (Most good engineers will offer an alternative before you ask.) If they push back on this and do not want to let you hear an alternative, it’s another red flag moment. Any time wasted is yours to waste since you’re paying for this time, so if they seem annoyed, it’s a red flag moment. Why is this a red flag? This is just the beginning of a long project. Recording an entire album is a stressful endeavor, even under optimal conditions. Evaluate the working relationship with the engineer as if you’re going to take a 30-day around-the-world trip with this person. (Or, if it’s the recording studio that you’re auditioning, pretend the studio is the tour bus that you’ll spend an entire month traveling on.) You will annoy each other at some point during the journey. That’s OK. Does this person seem like someone who can keep their cool and suggest a break rather than losing their temper? Does this studio have a separate room or outdoor space where you can go for a break? 

Setting up microphones and getting the sound just right can take some time, especially if there are many microphones that need to be set up. You may be ready to go but the engineer needs time to do their thing. Be patient at the beginning of your session.

From A/B Duo’s first recording session. Chris Jones warming up while the engineers at Chicago Recording Company finish setting up a bazillion microphones.

Is this engineer/studio proactive in helping you do your best work? Does the studio have all the basics you need? Clean bathroom, break room with basic coffee/tea, and a recording room that’s not completely dead so you can enjoy your sound in the space. 

While you record, keep a log of your takes. Your engineer can do some of this as well but you should keep your own record as you go. The engineer will tell you which take you’re on and you tell them if this is a good one, or a maybe. Note in your own log if it’s a good/bad take. An organized engineer should be able to flag all of the good or maybe takes as you go. (You definitely want an organized engineer!)

At the end of the recording session, ask the engineer to “bounce” all of your takes or all of your good takes so that you can listen to them at home to decide how to edit it. Depending on how simple or complicated your music/session was, your engineer may be able to make a compilation/rough edit of your good takes in a few moments. If you have studio time left, you can edit it with the engineer before you leave the studio. 

Post-Haste Reed Duo’s multi-day recording session at Fantasy Studios (Studio D). Listening to recent takes with bassoonist Javier Rodriguez, engineer Alberto Hernandez, saxophonist Sean Fredenburg, and producer Meerenai Shim.

Some engineers can’t read notated music but they can still be great to work with if they have amazing ears, like the ones I’ve worked with. If you’re recording new compositions with lots of mixed meter and/or have complicated form or instrumentation, I recommend finding an engineer who can read music. (Just because an engineer can read music, it doesn’t make them better than ones who cannot. A good engineer who can read music will make the editing and mixing process go faster than a good engineer who cannot read music.) 

Even after you’ve decided to work with one engineer or studio for your album, you can walk away at anytime (after considering the usual and reasonable late cancelation fees, if any.). No matter where you are in the process, you can always change engineers/studios. That’s another reason to get your session files on your hard drive at the end of every recording day. If you’ve recorded everything but the editing process isn’t going very well, you can stop working with that engineer and take your hard drive to another one to finish editing and mixing. Even if you’ve only recorded one of 4 movements, you can take those files and finish recording somewhere else. Listen to your gut. You can leave if you’re not feeling it or not 100% comfortable working with that engineer or studio.

I’ve had to bail on a studio/engineer twice. Once, at a small studio that had a good reputation, I asked for a click track of Q=112. They couldn’t figure out how to give me anything but 120. I didn’t feel safe pointing out the engineer’s mistakes or giving him advice on how to do anything so I paid for the rest of the time I booked for that afternoon and bailed. Another time, at a renowned conservatory with stellar facilities, the engineer couldn’t or wouldn’t set up a click track for me and I had to plug my iPhone into the headphone amplifier. This school didn’t have ProTools and it didn’t seem like a big deal in the beginning but it was obvious that this engineer didn’t really know his way around Logic (the DAW they had at this school) either. After that evening, I listened to that day’s recordings and there was a lot of click track bleed. (A good engineer should notice that the click track from the headphones is getting picked up in the microphones and will tell the musicians that we have to do it again after making proper adjustments.) We did not return for the next day’s session. 

After you’ve decided that the studio/engineer might be a good fit, listen to the recordings from your trial session. Does it sound good? This might be tough to evaluate because the way one listens to recording quality is very different from how classical musicians usually listen. Also, depending on what basic mix is used on your bounced audio, it can sound bad to a musician-listener because there’s no room mic (no reverb). Listen for extra noise like tapping feet or the click track that bled through your headphones to your mic. Is the sound equally clear when you’re playing loudly and quietly? Is everything super quiet? And when you turn up that super quiet recording do you hear a lot of hum/hiss of the air conditioning or fluorescent lights? Are there crackling noises or distortion? Some of the extraneous noise can be removed by a competent engineer after the fact but that could take a lot of extra time and money. It’s way better to have an engineer that will give you nice, clear recordings to begin with. If you’re not sure about the quality of the recording, ask a friend or colleague who has done a lot of recording or engineering for their opinion. Or you can contact Meerenai for a consultation. 

Do you have more questions? Did Meerenai miss anything? Let her know.

Kimberly R. Osberg (photo: Mauricio Herrera)

In Kimberly R. Osberg’s recent blog post about her pieces recorded by Elizabeth Robinson and company, the composer writes about the inspiration for each movement with photos and score samples.

Here’s an excerpt:

The last movement, Cock Flight, was inspired by the powerful and aggressive Sumatra chickens. While modern day Sumatras are more docile, they use to be bred as fighting birds and—what really sparked my imagination—could fly for short distances.

When it comes to a flute fight, there’s nothing more fun than pitting piccolos against each other. While I was tempted to score the movement for four piccolos, a few things kept me from doing so. One important factor being that I was trying to keep each part such that they only had to double one other instrument (so the first and second players double piccolo, the third player doubles alto, and the fourth doubles bass), the other being that—due to the limited range of the piccolo—I wanted to make sure I could really capture the raw power of the chicken, and felt I needed a lower octave to do so. While I didn’t initially anticipate it, having two piccolos and two flutes also opened a lot more possibilities for trading lines back and forth; this helped to really make the punches land harder and keep them coming faster.

Read the rest of the post on Osberg’s website.

Listen to the album, Aviary by Elizabeth Robinson.

Thank you to George Grella (Kill Yr Idols) and Tone Madison for including Oneira on your “Best of” lists for 2022!

Check out their lists:
Kill Yr Idols: Best Classical Recordings 2022
Tone Madison: Tone Madison’s top 20 records of 2022

Thank you textura for reviewing “Oneira” by Clocks in Motion!

“While it's possible to detect traces of Classical Minimalism and Balinese Gamelan in the material, [Bellor] possesses a natural gift for eluding reductive categorization. Stated otherwise, her writing is more identified by an expressive personal signature than allegiance to a particular genre or tradition. Without restricting itself necessarily, the music eschews dissonance for a vibrant, harmonious sound that dovetails excellently with the quartet's vibrant playing.”

Read the rest of the review at textura.

Listen to Oneira.

Congratulations to Tehillah Alphonso on her GRAMMY® nomination for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals for “A Change is Gonna Come” from “America Will Be” by Tonality & Alexander Lloyd Blake!

Photo courtesy of Tehillah Alphonso. Graphic design by Sean David Christensen.

Tonality’s Artistic Director Alexander Lloyd Blake and choir member David Morales were able to chat with Kelly Clarkson on her show about Tonality’s impact and the new America Will Be album! Watch the entire clip here:

Subscribers to The Wire Magazine, keep an eye out for a track from Elizabeth A. Baker in the Wire Tapper compilation CD that came with your latest issue of the magazine!

*We are proud to report that the Equal Sound Corona Relief Fund is a brainchild of Aerocade Artist, Nick Norton!

Dear Friends,

Our lives are in a topsy-turvy state at the moment because of Covid-19. In addition to cancelled gigs and tours, my musician colleagues and I don't know what kind of economic environment we will return to once we have a vaccine. Will there be any government support for the arts left? In the USA, there was very little government money for the arts and now I wonder if the pandemic will be an excuse for cutting out all "nonessential" programs/funds.

In the meantime, musicians need money. Many of us are independent contractors and are not employed by one employer so navigating the unemployment benefit requirements can take a long time. 

Please help us get through this by buying our music. Not just Aerocade's catalog but any artist that you like. Please buy their music or support their Patreon instead of only streaming on Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music, etc. 
 

To raise even more awareness around the pandemic’s impact on musicians everywhere, Bandcamp is waiving their revenue share on sales this Friday, March 20 (from midnight to midnight Pacific Time).

Aerocade will be donating 100% of our proceeds from Bandcamp on Friday, March 20 to Equal Sound's Corona Relief Fund*. 

Check out our Bandcamp page and treat yourself to some new music!

Thank you for your continued support and please take good care of yourself! 

Sincerely,

Meerenai Shim
Owner, Aerocade Music

This article originally appeared in Issue 43:2 (Nov/Dec 2019) of Fanfare Magazine.

Because Patterns • Isaac Schankler • Aerocade 011 (42:11)

Sometimes, not often, a sound just gets you. There is an immediate resonance that impels further listening. Such was the case with the opening of Isaac Schankler’s Because Patterns/Deep State. While the idea of using a prepared piano carries inevitable echoes of John Cage, and indeed there are certain passages that may reference Sonatas and Interludes, Schankler’s world is unique. It’s good to see Aron Kallay there, too, as he pretty much blew Fanfare reviewer Robert Carl’s mind with his disc Beyond Twelve (which included a piece by Schankler that reimagined a Chopin étude, entitled Alien Warp Étude). Schankler’s piece Pheromone was reviewed by myself in Fanfare 40:2. 

The idea of this disc is to explore three ways in three pieces of manipulating patterns. Because Patterns carries with it resonances of Feldman’s Why Patterns. This is rule-generated music in which a system of parameters used on one measure generates the next, a process referred to as cellular automaton. Here, it is mixed with a performance of Deep State for double bass and electronics. Whereas the upper frequencies move swiftly, with clear Minimalist tendencies, the lower stratum seems to reference an eternal. Because Patterns was commissioned by the present performers, the Ray-Kallay duo. The best electronic music shared with the best Minimalist music a sort of emotional cleanliness, and that is precisely what we get here. Even the ruminative, deep moments (both in pitch area and emotional intent) and the ruminative ones pitched high on the spectrum exhibit that cleanliness. In a sense, this changes the way we listen: Instead of a straightforward beauty experienced from music, there is an element here of beauty examined like an object held out at an arm’s reach and then beauty experienced. 

Cellular automaton is a process that, while simple on paper, can generate highly complex results in a number of areas of which music is only one. Although the idea was developed in the 1940s, it was in the 1970s that the idea was brought to popular science via Cambridge mathematician John Horton Conway’s book The Game of Life. Although a seemingly dry mathematical construct, the concept of cellular automaton can be found in nature in sea shells; and a reflection of that beauty is, perhaps, its appearance in music here. 

The performance is wonderful: clean-cut, perfectly calibrated both rhythmically and in the cut-crystal recording. Let that not imply there is no subtlety; the quiet re-emergence of the piano from an atemporal electronic hum later in the piece is beautifully managed. Out of the final droplets of sound emerges a throaty violin note. The piece Mobile I has the electronics reacting to violinist Sakura Tsai’s playing; an ongoing spectral analysis that initially is hardly even felt, only whispered, but becomes more insistent as the piece progresses. The composer, in the liner notes, acknowledges Tsai’s mastery, “improvised and polished at the same time.” 

On a different plane, at least on an immediate level, is Future Feelings for piano, played with real understanding by Nadia Shpachenko. The piece was written at the time of the birth of the composer’s first child, and Schankler wanted to create “a quiet, soothing version of noise music.” So the first part of the piece is actually built around a decidedly Romantic sound world, exuding a sense of nostalgia only underlined by the musical bedfellows on this disc. There is a sense at one point that any rose-tinted spectacles come off in an acknowledgement that a return to that past is impossible. 

Unique and thought-provoking, Schankler’s voice needs to be heard. Often restful and thoughtful and yet often subtly disturbing in its way of destabilizing fields of calm, this music offers myriad ways to reflect on the nature of how one expresses oneself via the medium of sound. And all that in just over 40 minutes. 

Colin Clarke

This article originally appeared in Issue 43:2 (Nov/Dec 2019) of Fanfare Magazine.

Donut Robot! • Post-Haste Reed Duo • AEROCADE 010 (59:30)

Yes, you read that right: Donut Robot!: a celebration of the combination of saxophone and bassoon. The title comes from Ruby Fulton’s charming piece, which for just shy of 10 minutes explores a somewhat unsurprisingly mechanistic soundworld. The title comes from that scourge of contemporary life, autocorrect, in a text message between the two members of the Post-Haste Duo. A musical representation of the state before and after communication breakdown (unison passages cede to all sorts of fun), it has a more serious side as it examines also some of the dark side of such breakdowns (Pokemon Go! causing accidents and deaths, Y2K, and so on). It is the ideal ushering-in of this new sound universe of sax and bassoon, and the cartoon illustrations on the disc of a metal donut with pink icing and hundreds and thousands of sprinkles are amazing. The performance needs to be preternaturally accurate for this to work, and so it is. 

The keening, microtonal high opening of Drew Baker’s First Light and its continuing exploration of that soundspace are an intended depiction of the time between dawn and sunrise. The idea is to live within the texture and at the same time observe its changes, however small they may be. The three Soundscapes of Michael Johanson are inspired by two vistas: the hills of southern Italy and snowfall in Oregon. There is a spring in the step of the first, “The Hills of Basilicata,” an artist community the composer visited in 2014. There is much beauty here, enhanced by the perfect ensemble of the two players (at times they sound as if they are two stops on an organ, perfectly articulated by the organist). The central “Snowscape” is a musical depiction of the peace after a snowfall the composer witnessed in Oregon, while the joyous, multi-meter “Moto perpetuo” does what it says on the tin, and well. 

Another great title is for Edward J. Hines’s piece Hommage: Saygun et Bartók en Turque, subtitled “Chanson de Hatice Dekioğlu.” The piece refers to the visit in 1936 by the two composers Bartók and Saygun to a Turkish village, where the 13-year-old Hatice Dekioğlu sang a folksong for them. The two players at one point intone the words of the song “I came to this World from Istanbul / My affection is for the daughter of the Armenian / Don’t eat, don’t drink, but look at the eyes of the young one / Take me to the saddle, oh son of the Kurd, and let us go.” Hines’s piece is a set of variations on the original recording, but it is also a tribute to the two composers—especially Saygun, perhaps, as Hines studied composition and ethnomusicology with him on a Fulbright scholarship in the mid-1980s. Towards the end, we hear the original recording above sustained notes on sax and bassoon; the instruments react to the sound, too. It is an unbearably touching moment when one is aware of the basis of the piece. 

The inspiration for Andrea Reinkemeyer’s In the Speaking Silence comes from a poem by Cristina Rossetti, Echo. Written in 2018 in memory of the composer’s mother, there is an inevitable touching aspect to this piece of sonic mourning. There is a rhythmic underlay derived from the Christian hymn It is Well with my Soul in tribute to the deceased’s love of the hymnic tradition. There is the most remarkable multiphonic on saxophone here—remarkable for both its veracity (multiphonics so often misfire and sound like something grinding when it shouldn’t be) and its perfect control. In performance, the performers should be located as far away from each other as possible, to enhance the echo effects; space in musical terms is also utilized, as the players begin in unison and end far apart. 

That would have been a poignant way to end, but one in dissonance, perhaps, with the pink-frosted metal donut, so the closing word is left to Takumah Itoh’s Snapshots, which comprises four short movements: “Grotesque,” “Chain,” “Haunted,” and “Early Bird Special.” Fragmented Minimalism makes “Chain” particularly fascinating, especially after the harsh sounds of the short “Grotesque.” The title “Chain” refers to Lutosławski’s series of works of that name, and controlled aleatorism is the link between the two. Itoh concentrates on the glissando for “Haunted,” but his way is far from straightforward or hackneyed. It is, moreover, a study on where how and where the directionalism of a glissando flowers. It morphs into “Early Bird Special,” bebop influenced (think of Charlie Parker’s “Bird”) and also reminiscent of Raymond Scott’s mechanistic, cartoonish music. 

Detailed notes on the music is available online. Intriguing and strangely satisfying from first to last, this is a most unexpected treat. 

Colin Clarke 

Photo: Charlotte Suarez

This article originally appeared in Issue 43:2 (Nov/Dec 2019) of Fanfare Magazine.

Quadrivium • Elizabeth A. Baker • AEROCADE 008 (118:00)

Elizabeth A. Baker, based in St. Petersburg, Florida, refers to herself as a “New Renaissance Artist,” which means in part that she works in a variety of forms and media. A 16-page zine accompanying this release includes her poetry and art, and it helps to put her work in a broad perspective. It also includes a “Manifesto” in which Baker decries exclusivity in the presentation and dissemination of modern concert music (and art in general), and in which she observes that such exclusivity can be created unintentionally by well-meaning promoters who try to attract new audiences with “trendy” or “curated” experiences. This resonates with me, and not just because “curated” has lately become my least favorite buzzword! “Art,” she writes, “belongs to all mankind.” Right on. 

Baker, who is now 29, is a graduate of St. Petersburg College’s Music Industry Recording Arts program; she started out as a classical guitarist before discovering her true creative voice, in which the piano plays a central role. Quadrivium is the latest of several commercial releases (available, like Quadrivium, on Bandcamp), and the most varied yet in both instrumentation and style. An early, all-piano collection is called Imperfect Improvisations for Possible Probable Ghost Listeners, and some of the music on that release sounds eerily like Debussy, or like Scriabin on Quaaludes. Quadrivium is nothing like that. Its first half, while devoted to the piano, opens with the Minimalist and tightly controlled Sashay by Nathan Anthony Corder, and continues with Baker’s own works, looser and more improvisational in style, which call for the piano to be prepared in different ways. The title Command Voices, used in two of these works, alludes to the voices heard by individuals experiencing psychosis. These voices direct them to behave in certain ways, including in ways that can cause harm to the individual or to the community. One of the implements used in these works is a vibrator—yes, that kind of vibrator. (The feminist implications of that are fascinating.) The second half is devoted to works in which electronics and spoken word feed off each other, and here Quadrivium takes on an appealingly science-fictionish vibe—a little William Gibson and a little Samuel Delany. Baker addresses social issues, such as the transactional nature of love in the digital age, and the alienation of the “silent webcrawler,” sometimes electronically altering her voice to emphasize that alienation. A recitation of URLs and IP addresses, punctuated by a slow and stuttering electronic heartbeat, is chilling. Baker is a talented composer and performer, and Quadrivium, taken as a whole, is a pretty impressive release for someone still so young. Perhaps Baker will be the Pauline Oliveros of her generation, and perhaps she will be more than that. 

Quadrivium also is available as a digital download from Bandcamp, where you can buy the CD, and a separate copy of the zine, if you so desire. It’s not easy listening in any sense of that phrase, but its difficulties are anything but gratuitous. Adventurous listeners might find it to be a provocative and intriguing ride. 

Raymond Tuttle 

Many thanks to textura for reviewing Isaac Schankler’s Because Patterns!

“Benefits accrue to composer and performer alike from this presentation of three electroacoustic works by Los Angeles-based Isaac Schankler. Currently Assistant Professor of Music at Cal Poly Pomona, Schankler is a composer, accordionist, and electronic musician whose material is realized exquisitely on the forty-two-minute recording by pianists Aron Kallay and Vicki Ray, double bassist Scott Worthington, violinist Sakura Tsai, and pianist Nadia Shpachenko. The Ray-Kallay Duo appears alongside Worthington on Because Patterns/Deep State, whereas Tsai and Shpachenko present solo performances of Mobile I and Future Feelings, respectively. Describing them as such isn't perhaps entirely accurate, however, when the pieces seem more like collaborations between the performers and electronics. Regardless, the material benefits mightily from the high-level artistry of the musicians, and one's impression of Schankler's composing ability is enhanced in turn by their performances. All five players bring impressive credentials to the project: Shpachenko, for example, is, like Schankler, a Professor of Music at Cal Poly Pomona University, whereas Ray is head of keyboard studies at the California Institute of the Arts.”

Read the rest at textura.org.

Congratulations to the Post-Haste Reed Duo on their TEN YEARS playing together as a kickass duo! Help them celebrate at their show on August 15th at 1st Stage Tysons in Tysons Corner, Virginia:

THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 2019
AT 7:30 PM

1ST STAGE TYSONS
1524 SPRING HILL ROAD
TYSONS, VA 22102

$15

https://www.newmusicusa.org/event/post-haste-reed-duos-10th-anniversary-concert/

The Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review says:

“No person is an island and perhaps every piece of music connects in some way to every other piece of music whether local or world-widely, contemporary to ancient. That may be more to chew off on this rainy morning than I can safely address on the blog, but it explains my feeling listening to Because Patterns (Aerocade Music 011). I get a distinct window on experiencing a piece of today that is electroacoustically enmeshed with what has happened in Electronica and the Post-Progressive in Rock, on one hand, soundscaping ambiance, and the whole spectrum of the Modern Contemporary Classical on the other.”

Read the rest of the review here.

Thank you Grego Applegate Edwards for taking the time to listen to and review Because Patterns!

Many thanks to I Care if You Listen and Nick Stevens for taking the time to review Isaac Schankler’s Because Patterns!

“Because Patterns has it all: killer liner notes, evocative performances from musical dream teams, and balance between coherence and variety. The impeccable recording, engineering, and mixing by Schankler, Vanessa Parr, Ben Phelps, Scott Fraser, Barry Werger, and others certainly help. Four years and eleven records into its existence, Aerocade Music can claim another victory with this release.”

- Nick Stevens, I Care if You Listen

Read the entire review here.