Assemblage Chamber
New Focus, 2022
8/10
The atypical composer Steven Ricks brings us 3 chamber works that are put through his glitchy, collage focused formula, where Baroque templates are met with an electronic and improvisational vision.
“Heavy With Sonata” opens the listen with flowing strings from Aubrey Woods’ violin, Alex Woods’ viola and Jason Richards’ harpsichord, where tension and beauty meet with detailed attention to rhythm and a distinct harmonic language that is quite unpredictable and exciting.
“Reconstructing The Lost Improvisations Of Aldo Pilestri” follows, and presents very dynamic string work thanks to Miranda Cuckson (violin), Jessica Meyer (viola) and Caleb van der Swaagh (cello), as Daniel Lippel’s guitar and Benjamin Fingland’s bass clarinet help cultivate an improvised landscape of Baroque influences, meticulous pitch manipulation and unusual rhythms.
The back half presents Jason Hardink’s dreamy harpsichord alongside violin, viola and cello from Gerald Elias, Hasse Borup and Walter Haman, where soloistic gestures and off kilter repetition is turned into a refined science, and Ricks’ electronics populate the 12+ minutes of “Assemblage Chamber”, where a strategic minimalism is executed with keen attention to aesthetics and sci-fi friendly bouts that are quite meditative, too.
A very innovative and ambitious affair, Ricks assembles contemporary chamber sounds in iconoclastic ways on this superbly textured outing.
Travels well with: Finola Merivale- Tús; Tom Flaherty- Mixed Messages