Various Artists
SONIC REBELLION: ALTERNATIVE CLASSICAL COLLECTION
(hear it)

This amusingly marketed collection of modern classical, or contemporary art music, or new music, or as I like to call it, weird music, although some further signifier is in order since this music is rooted mostly in the classical rather than rock or jazz or whatever other tradition, is actually really quite focused and cool.

Probably Krysztof Penderecki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" is the biggest eye-opener for me here. His tone clusters are truly gigantic. Unlike Glenn Branca's vaguely structured harmonic-mass oceans, Penderecki lulls the listener a little before sucker-punching you with a sound which is truly hard to cope with. Great at high volume in the strip-mall parking lot. Rather than the intellectual delight of Branca's angel-choruses, which your ear gradually synthesises out of the chaos, here we are never given time to make the fear go away - it affects the heart rather than the mind.

Conlon Nancarrow, John Cage, Terry Riley (in a very short or perhaps unnoted edit of In C), and Jorgen Plaetner are among the other heavy-hitters here. The latter is a Danish composer whose electronic sounds are not particularly interesting, but who structures them effectively. Giacinto Scelsi has a piece built on one note and a hundred textures.

Unfortunately I didn't like the Finn Einojuhani Rautavaara's Piano Concerto. Too much like a bratty baby banging the piano while mom tries to watch the part of a Gary Cooper movie where he grabs the girl and the music swells.

About the packaging. It seems to me that if Naxos wants to make a CD that kids seeking alternatives will dig, and is going to put spattered paint on the front and call it Sonic Rebellion, they had better come up with some music which will make the kids want to break stuff. This is all a little tame (except for maybe the Penderecki and Nancarrow). Perhaps they should call this one new wave.

bb, 12 Jul 08