All Roads
New Focus, 2022
8/10
The esteemed composer Anthony Cheung brings along an all star cast for these chamber works that are rich with variation and very focused with their harmonic gestures.
The title track starts the listen with atmospheric keys from Gilles Vonsattel, as the Escher Quartet present their haunting and mysterious strings across the chilling, cinematic expanse, and “Elective Memory” follows with Miranda Cuckson’s absorbing violin and Cheung’s skilled piano making for a very intimate, sometimes frantic and occasionally eerie demeanor.
On the back half, “Character Studies” presents just Cuckson’s manipulated violin across 2 very unpredictable and expressive movements, while “All Thorn, But Cousin To Your Rose” exits with Paulina Swierczek’s soprano and Jacob Greenberg’s piano in the operatic and energetic finish that relays many texts and plenty of mesmerizing key progressions.
An artist who explores a vast breadth of instrumental techniques, the compositions here are full of atypical layers, textual meaning and creative artistry that few could replicate.
Travels well with: Jennifer Grim- Through Broken Time; Mikel Kuehn- Entanglements