Textura review of Elizabeth A. Baker's "Quadrivium"
"A more than impressive debut..." - Textura
Elizabeth A. Baker's Quadrivium was reviewed in Textura this week, ahead of the May 25th release.
Here's an except:
Anointing herself a “New Renaissance Artist” might seem a bold, even hubristic move on Elizabeth Baker's part, but the choice is legitimated by the contents of her ambitious debut album Quadrivium: two discs of music, the first consisting of minimalist piano pieces and the second ambient-styled settings, spoken word pieces, and electronic experiments. Well-considered, the album title refers to the subjects arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy that when paired with the those of the trivium—grammar, logic, and rhetoric—compose the seven liberal arts. Certainly Baker's diverse range of interests is well-accounted for on the project: along with two hours of musical material, the release comes with a full-color booklet that includes poetry, photography, and illustrations by Baker as well as track-related info and reflections on communication, gender, and other timely issues. Something of a multi-instrumentalist, she augments her piano playing with electronics, voice, guitar, percussion, and toy piano, and she also advocates strongly for the latter: in 2016, Baker established the Florida International Toy Piano Festival to provide a platform for serious toy piano works, and the instrument's prominently featured on the album's otherwise synthesizer-heavy “An Outcast.”