Henceforth Records

The music is a six-part work which encapsulates his new approach to composition. Olson gave every musician a series of verbal and graphic instructions which suggested durations and pitch levels but allowed freedom and elicited diverse reactions. The resultant music is precise but malleable; it warps perception and defies expectation as it conforms to not category, environment or genre while embracing many.

These duets by The Skein - vocalist Jessica Constable and electro-multiinstrumentalist Andrea Parkins - possess a unified sense of form and feeling. Though fully improvised, it is easy to think of these pieces as composed songs: they are at times quite melodic, exemplifying coherent extemporaneous form. And no matter how unpredictable the sonic content, implicit in all of these pieces is the presence of the human cry: the blues.

Lisle Ellis's homage to Jean-Michel Basquiat translates the work of a visual artist into a musical palette and Ellis does it with great imagination, integrity, and beauty.

In the liner notes Larry Ochs (ROVA Sax Quartet) says "Carla Kihlstedt and Satoko Fujii show us exactly how improvisation can be the strongest tool in the composer's tool box." He's right. Listen.

This brilliant percussionist covers a wide range of music: solo on snare drum, glockenspiel and poetry, his compositions performed by talented and creative ensembles, and a solo guitar track. No holding Aguilar back; he pays no attention to genres, thank heavens

These recordings were made when the trio was on a US tour last year (2004). How they could keep their amazing musical energy while on-the-road is a feat in itself.

We heard these musicians from Germany and Belgium at the WIM Festival in Antwerp and were basically "knocked out" by their sound.