Recording

This release collects several compositions written over the last 20 years, combining electronics with acoustic instruments, mainly strings and a toy piano. This instrument crops up several times in his list of works. He seems fascinated with not the basic sound itself but the behaviour of the harmonics of this instrument which are, in fact, a bit weird. I believe all recordings on this release are 'firsts', though probably performed several times already. Something I have come across with many of the SEAMUS composers, too, for instance, sporting long lists of compositions but very few, if any, recordings. Lots of work ahead. The first track, 'Shepard's Pi' (a pun on the good old English pie, something you can actually eat in this country), is written for toy piano and consists of a long string of rising and receding scales, playing with the 'overtones' and mirroring the acoustic piano sounds in two different electronic processings. Not my favourite, though. 'Threnody', the second track, starts off the coming display of string music on this CD. The solo cello is no longer solo as the electronic processor plays back the sound, echoing, filtering, layering, and picking harmonics. I must say, this piece works better than the first, with the cello offering a better source for layering sound on sound and creating a space within which the music can develop and flow. 'Under the Weather' combines an organ with the cello (there is a distinct tendency towards the lower string scales here, but Flaherty is a cello player himself ...) into a very effective piece of music - electronic treatment (if any) is very sublime here. The three parts of 'Recess' have the Eclipse string quartet perform musical patterns that walk around the space, sparsely supported by live electronic processing (which eventually offers a continuous background) in a more expressionist than contemporary style. 'Violelation' does not address violence but violins ... in analogy to Bach's famous piece using the letters of his name, Flaherty uses here violinist Cindy Fogg's name to arrange and re-arrange notes of the solo viola. This might sound strenuous but actually works well, with a background growling drone made by processing the sounds (and yes, no i, n, y, or o). Again, the electronics allow the performer to play on several levels simultaneously, giving the music more breadth and the viola sound a variety of different characters, even breaking out into a Bartok-esque second half after pointillistic beginnings. 'Mixed Messages' is a duo of violin and piano, supported by a low growl of processed violin and a 'prepared piano' (?) sound reminding of Hania Rani. The final piece, 'Release', is a duo of strings with the electronics mostly limited to an echo track. All in all, I had expected to find a more 'electronic' sounding approach - judging from the title. What we see, though, is strings-dominated music that is more related to Debussy, Bartok, and Janacek than contemporary electroacoustic music (which this does not pretend to be). Maybe I should have paid more attention to Flaherty's flippant remark that he 'loves humans more', though he teaches electronic music. An enjoyable release that reminds us that electronic processing can be a support for musicians in broadening the spectrum of a performance and not only a means in itself.

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—Robert Steinberger,
6.14.2022

A set where new age meets contemporary classical meets outer space, this electro acoustic mover even brings toys into the mix as he follows Allen Toussaint’s view that there’s music everywhere. The kind of stuff you can hear playing at an installation and buy impulsively on the way out, you can bet that at the very least, your kids will be fascinated by a grown up playing toy piano. Wild in its own way.

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—Chris Spector,
6.01.2022

The title of composer Tom Flaherty’s monograph recording Mixed Messages can be read as referring not only to the title track for violin, piano, and electronics, but more generally to the work of electroacoustic composition, which mixes the messaging of two different ways of creating sound. As it happens Flaherty, who directs the Pomona College Electronic Studio, mixes the messaging of acoustic instruments and electronics with a well-honed sense of complementarity. The works presented on this album represent a style of composition in which the electronics are an often subtle, and always natural, presence within the overall sound, serving to augment or emphasize harmonies and textures. This comes out clearly on the album’s centerpiece, the three-movement Recess (2017) for string quartet, performed here with the optional electronics part included. The piece is grounded in the accumulation and repetition of brief motifs, which in the first movement form the foundation over which intertwined single lines drift downward, and in the third movement provide a pulsing, compressed rhythmic energy. The second movement features thick harmonies set out in long tones moving in and out of greater and lesser dissonances. On this movement in particular the electronics play a role in regulating the density and resonance of the sound’s overall texture, while maintaining the movement’s harmonic transformations as its center of musical gravity. The mixed messages of the title track, from 2014, arise from its harmonic undecidability. At its center is a four-note chord that, depending on how it’s presented, could be major or minor, or consonant or dissonant. Acoustic piano and violin are accompanied by samples of violin and piano, which fruitfully complicate an already complicated harmonic knot. Other highlights include 2020’s Release for violin, cello, and electronics, which integrates electronics-enhanced rhythms with timbral contrasts based on different string techniques, and Threnody (2003) for cello and electronics, which sets up a real-time, stimulus-and-response duet between live processing and a semi-improvised cello part.

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—Daniel Barbiero,
7.27.2022

The cellist and composer Tom Flaherty brings us an electro-acoustic listen that welcomes an all-star cast on strings and keys, as Flaherty handles electronics with a versatile vision that draws inspiration from extra musical events and phenomenon. Shepard’s Pi starts the listen with Genevieve Feiwan’s playful toy piano alongside Flaherty’s mysterious electronics in the very creative octave manipulation and atypical rhythmic gestures, and Threnody follows with Maggie Parkins on cello as Flaherty weaves his craft into a meditative and chilling display. Packed in the middle is the 3 segments of Recess, where violins, viola and cello from the Eclipse Quartet brings orchestral ideas into electronic moments that recruits a rare energy and strategic repetition, while Violelation makes great use of Cynthia Fogg’s plucked violin that pairs with live electronics and tips its hat to Balkan music. Release exits the listen, and in 11+ minutes it blends Jeff Gauthier’s violin and Parkins’ cello in tense, cathartic moments that can be bare and then later dense with harmonic and timbral appeal. Flaherty has enjoyed a lengthy and successful career that includes a Grammy nomination, and along with the exceptional help he births a highly unique electro-acoustic experience that few, if anyone, could replicate.

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—Tom Haugen,
10.21.2022