The 80th anniversary of minimalist pioneer
Steve Reich
's birth in 2016 has resulted in strong recordings of his music. This one by New York-based
Ensemble Signal
, which already had a successful recording of the classic
Music for 18 Musicians
under its belt, is especially nice. Here the group takes up little-known and more recent
Reich
works and makes a very strong case for them. The
Double Sextet
of 2007 was composed for a single sextet of strings, winds, and vibraphone performing with a tape of itself (as in
Violin Phase
), but here it is convincingly realized by 12 live musicians. The work is not more colored by jazz than other music by
, but from the sheer rhythmic energy with which the
carries this off, it almost seems like a jazz work.
Radio Rewrite
(2013), one of the composer's newest pieces as of its recording here, is a bit off the beaten
track. The work is for 11 instruments, close to the ensemble heard in the
. It resulted from the composer's friendship with the members of the alternative rock band
Radiohead
, and despite the minimal Fast-Slow-Fast-Slow-Fast titles of its five movements, each one is suggested by a
song. The actual level of
content, however, is very low; in most of the movements it will take an obsessive
fan indeed to spot the original. Nevertheless, the overlap of that group with
lovers may be fairly large;
's interest in the band began when he heard one of its members performing his own
Electric Counterpoint
. Recommended for both
and
fans. ~ James Manheim