Storylines Crossing

Product Description

The NakedEye Ensemble’s debut recording ”Storylines Crossing” refutes the notion that contemporary classical music is isolated from the real world we live in. Three works have a sociopolitical slant, and several compositions draw on the energy that rock offers. The pieces are inspired by a wide variety of subjects, including: the Vietnam War; the infamous Attica Prison riots; the development of a groovy bass line; and the antics of catnip-fueled cats. Five of the six works receive their premiere recordings, and the sixth work presents a contemporary music masterpiece in a new, unusual arrangement. NakedEye’s founder Ju-Ping Song comments, ”Because members of the group come from diverse stylistic backgrounds, our music reflects the rock, jazz, experimental, and classical genres that define each musician separately. For us and for composers writing for us, this is a journey where storylines cross from the personal into the musical.” Lainie Fefferman adds, ”This young ensemble has shown a wonderful commitment to commissioning and championing new music, so I’m not surprised they’re releasing this ambitious, impressive album.”

Review

If you tossed an electric blues band and a contemporary music ensemble into the blender and turned it to high, you might end up with something like NakedEye, the Lancaster, Pa., octet led by pianist Ju-Ping Song. The music on the group’s exciting debut release is a stylistic melange, full of gritty energy and wonderful stylistic feints. From the opening strains of Jonathan Russell’s ”Sextet,” which grafts Baroque variation technique onto a jazzy bass groove, through the tape-and-instrument collage of Randall Woolf’s ”Punching the Clock,” the pieces seem to dart in several directions at once without ever losing a sense of coherence. There are also pieces by Rusty Banks (a deliciously ambitious recasting of the electric guitar), Zack Browning and Richard Belcastro, but for some reason nothing by women. ”Coming Together,” Frederic Rzewski’s proto-minimalist classic from 1971, winds up the slate in Belcastro’s strange and revelatory arrangement. –Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle