BANDCAMP DAILY: Best of Bandcamp Contemporary Classical: February 2020
BANDCAMP DAILY: Best of Bandcamp Contemporary Classical: February 2020
BY PETER MARGASAK
“In recent years this versatile New York ensemble has functioned as a kind of a stripped down orchestra section for hire, for the likes of Paul Simon, Ben Folds, and Sufjan Stevens. But since the members are all top-flight players who’ve worked in new music, when yMusic first emerged in 2008 much of its repertoire was also drawn from that world. The sextet returns to those roots on its fourth album Ecstatic Science, delivering a lovely series of new work from long-time colleagues of the group.
The album is bookended by pieces from Bay Area composer Gabriella Smith. ‘Tessellations’ is a driving, shape-shifting gem that calls on yMusic to be a contrapuntal rhythmic machine with traces of vintage Philip Glass, while ’Maré’ builds from ambiguous wisps of sound, its pitched material cycling in a giddy churn that belies the shifting complexity of its eight delirious minutes. Missy Mazzoli’s title composition is a different kind of study in counterpoint, as the clarion tone of trumpeter C.J. Camerieri invoking the ‘American sound’ of Aaron Copland, sparkles against various combinations of strings, the crystalline flute of Alex Sopp, and the pristine clarinet of Rob Moose. It’s hard to believe that only a sextet is playing Paul Wiancko’s bright ‘Thou&this,’ while the collection’s centerpiece—Caroline Shaw’s three-movement ‘Draft of a High-Rise’—is another display of rhythmic concision and melodic elegance.”