Percussive Other Minds MP3s

Recordings from the recent Other Minds festival in San Francisco continue to be uploaded to the Internet Archive, aka archive.org. Some are a little off topic to the Disquiet Downstream, but two recent percussion pieces will certainly appeal to fans of the trance-like (trance-itory?) effects of Balinese gamelan and the pixelated moire patterns of Steve Reich’s urban minimalism. The ensemble So Percussion performed “Melody Competition” by composer Evan Ziporyn on February 26, the piece ranging widely from rural quietude to Cageian near-chaos. That same night the ensemble performed John Luther Adams‘ “Strange and Sacred Noise,” a more resolute and singular experience by Alaska’s best known composer. (Easiest to locate these at archive.org by searching for “melody competition” and “sacred noise.”) More on Ziporyn at ziporyn.com. More on Adams at johnlutheradams.com. And more on the performers, whose latest album is Reich’s Drumming (Cantaloupe), at sopercussion.com.