June 17, 2019

  • Moving Through Line and Space

     

    Lines & Spaces: The Music of Thad Anderson
    Bryant Bernal, Kaley Bonatakis, Karen Toney, and Matt Roberts, percussion.
    George Weremchuk, alto saxophone.
    Nick Stange, percussion.
    Rose Grace, Kristie Born, piano. Thad Anderson, Marja Kerney, percussion.
    Korry Friend, snare drum.
    Nicholas Phillips, baritone saxophone.
    Omojo Percussion Duo: Oliver Molina and Joe W. Moore, III
    Will Daniels, piano.
    Nora Lee Garcia, Nicholas Buonanni, Adrianne Hill, Kate Nichols, Amber Sheppard, flutes.
    Thad Anderson, Marissa Turney, vibraphone. Jacob Kight, Karen Toney, marimba.
    Chris Baird, Mitchell Gribbroek, Joe Jones, Christian Martin, percussion.
    James Meckley, voice.
    Ravello Records 8013
    Total Time:  79:35
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    Lines and Spaces is a collection of fifteen pieces by composer Thad Anderson.  Anderson teaches at the University of Florida where he leads courses in percussion, composition, and music technology.  All these aspects can be seen to coalesce around this album that features a host of small ensembles for various percussion instruments as well as explorations of fixed media and live processing.  The title for the album takes its lead from Anderson’s technique which he calls “duration lines” which provide structure while exploring rhythmic ideas.  These pieces were all created between 2011 and 2018 and essentially explore this idea of layered rhythms and sounds.

    In the opening Withheld (2011), the concept of line and temporal sound are explored through different tuned metals.  The technique seems like an extension of phase music, though Anderson is not using his rhythms as a repetitive motif as one might find in this minimalist-related approach.  Specific patterns are repeated but often are transformed by another line that works in counterpoint to the other.  The music does feel like it circles around structurally.  Using fixed media as a backdrop accompaniment, Route (2014) allows for a florid alto saxophone line against a shifting, mostly tonal harmony.  Here too singular pulses have an echo of minimalist style but Anderson is also as interested in the longer lines created by the soloist here.  The central section features a gorgeous romantic line.  As We May Think (2014) is a work for percussion and fixed media which includes sampled vocals from an interview.  This becomes part of the general texture.  Anderson’s fixed pulse helps keep things moving forward while exploring a particular idea which may grow out of a rhythmic pattern and then expand, or evolve into other sounds.  A combination of two pianos with percussion are used for the multi-movement Five Messages (2013).  In this work, Anderson gets to experiment with blocks of sound against his pulses and motivic ideas spread across the instruments here.  The music has a slightly more dissonant edge with an almost Impressionistic block harmony as one piano line while another creates a more rhythmic outline.  These tend to move fluidly from one to the other or into the percussion.  In a way, Withhold (2018) serves as a sort of bookend to the first half of the program.  The piece for snare drum and fixed media is a rather fascinating exploration sound now with an unpitched instrument taking on an important connection to the repeated rhythmic patterns of the electronic sounds that pulse about it.

    As in the earlier Route, Re-Cite (2016) explores the sonic qualities of a wind instrument, here a baritone saxophone, using processing to create the harmonic soundscape and pulses that encircle one another as little patterns are repeated and looped.  Mechanization (2014) returns to an exploration of bell tones and pitched percussion sounds in a way that is perhaps the closest to minimalist technique, though Anderson’s shifts tend to come a little quicker.  A piece for solo piano, Ouside, Looking In (2014), has an interesting open harmonic idea but instead tends to focus on the instrument in a way quite similar to the composer’s mallet percussion pieces on the album.  The difference lies more in the way sound can decay more thus granting a different feel to the short motivic lines.  An almost bare quality comes across here with the music feeling stripped down to basic repeated patterns.  The use of flutes with fixed media creates an important aural shift for the listener in Through-Line (2012).  The lines weave about one another while a collection of harmonies progress in specific sections to add more shape structurally to the piece.  The pulse and multiple lines here are rather mesmerizing as they unfold.  Here the music seems to reference a more post-minimalist approach against the composer’s own exploration of line.  A similar concept is then tried for vibraphones and marimbas in By-and-By (2013).  The music can explore some slightly darker colors which adds its own equal fascinating texture.  The final piece, Within (2016) returns us to the sound world of tuned metals that opened the album coupled with a narrative connection to the national parks.

    Overall this is a very generous collection of Anderson’s music that allows the listener to explore his compositional technique.  Fortunately, the instrumental colors change enough to allow for some variety in the listening experience.  The music also has a very accessible tonal language that is rather inviting and unassuming.  This practically lulls the listener away from focusing on the way Anderson is encouraging us to listen to music in different ways.  Lines and Spaces is thus a rather fascinating release of contemporary music.