<< -- 2 -- Patric Standford ENERGETICALLY PROGRESSIVE
The brass quintet Come Spring!, unfortunately recorded in a very
dry unflattering acoustic, moves from one event to another in what seems
to be the Brazelton style, an intermix of Feldman, Miles Davies, Janis Joplin
and others, that delivers some attractive surface work but doesn't get anywhere,
like this short-lived rhythmic pattern from the second 'groove-centric'
movement called 'Miles Through an open Window' [listen
-- track 2, 1:39-2:30]. The best of the music is in the 'voice-centric'
third movement in which she explores her student interest in medieval plainsong
[listen -- track 3, 1:26-2:26].
R, completed in 1998, is the only track in which Kitty herself
features as performer, singing a 'bizarre half-dreamed lullaby, halfway
between the magic realism of Claude Vivier and surreal exotica of Yma Sumac'
(to quote Frank J Oteri's enthusiastic notes) [listen
-- track 5, 3:04-4:01].
From the same year came Sonar Como Una Tromba Larga (To sound
like a great waterspout) for trombone (Chris Washburne) and a tape created
by Kitty in the Columbia University Computer Music Centre using sounds played,
spoken and breathed, by the trombonist. It is by no means very advanced
work of its kind, but it does become quite intriguingly percussive about
half way through [listen -- track 6, 6:52-7:50].
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Copyright © 15 January 2003
Patric Standford, West Yorkshire, UK
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