Currently in production are the following new releases . . .
Music for Airport Furniture
Australian composer Whittington's subtle and beautiful work for string quartet that alludes to Erik Satie’s Furniture Music. The composer writes, "I was interested in the airport departure lounge as an arena for human emotions—boredom, apprehension, hope, despair, loneliness, the tenderness of farewells—all taking place within a bland, often desolate space." The work was premiered at the Psychadelic Rays of Sound festival.
Recorded by the Zephyr Quartet, an award-winning Australian ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary music.
A specially-priced CD-single (23 min.)
"Belying its Satieesque title, this work unravels to reveal a music of sheer elegance and eloquence." —Peter Garland
"Luxurious and comfortable, I could sit and listen to Music for Airport Furniture for hours." —Richard Friedman, Music from Other Minds (KALW, San Francisco)
Black Water
This boisterously churning piece for three pianos is rich with dense, sometimes shimmering, sometimes rumbling tremolos set off by moments of light, twinkling quietude. (Written in 1984, and premiered the following year at the New Music America festival, its title was taken from an Alberto Manguel-edited collection of short stories.)
All three parts performed by noted Los Angeles pianist Bryan Pezzone, who has appeared on more than a half dozen earlier Cold Blue releases.
A specially-priced CD single (18 min.).
"Jim Fox is a singular composer. His music is deep, sparkling, ecstatic, and breathaking." —John Luther Adams
"Black Water is a real torrent—always moving forward. It's very exciting to be taken up by its tide." —Richard Friedman, Music from Other Minds (KALW, San Francisco)
35 Whirlpools Below Sound
A wide-ranging, haunting, emotionally gripping electro-acoustic soundscape by composer-performers Newman and Cox, 35 Whirlpools ... was developed and realized during the 20-plus years that the two have been friends and musical collaborators.
Newman is a well-known and highly regarded film-music composer who has also written non-film-related works for such ensembles as the Kronos Quartet and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Cox, who has collaborated and recorded with Jon Hassell, Thomas Newman, Ry Cooder, Peter Freeman, Chas Smith, and many others, has had a number of pieces released on previous Cold Blue releases.
"{Cox's] enveloping harmonies are less innocent than they first appear. Prettiness with a tough core." —The Wire
"Rick is a hidden master of the crepuscular and the diaphanous." —Ry Cooder
"Newman's writing is comfortable in many worlds and fun to listen to."—Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times
"[Newman is] a versatile talent ... fond of experimentation ... The result is distinctive, often haunting music that can be lush and melodic or stark and edgy." —Los Angeles Times
In the Sea of Ionia
Wild new multi-keyboard music.
"When it comes to attempts at musical seduction, Daniel Lentz's music is way out in front." —Kyle Gann, The Village Voice
"By intriguing his listeners at the same time he wreathes them in smiles, Lentz always comes up with something listenable and worthwhile." —Gramophone
"Lentz's music inhabits what he terms a musical 'state of becoming,' where both new and reappearing musical and textual fragments are fused through complex layering processes. However, the real basis of his seductive music may be the dreamy impressionism of Debussy and the lyrical voice and keyboard interaction of Schubert's lieder." — John Schaefer, WNYC, New Sounds
"Lentz's work 'chortles' in ways both sensual and intellectual." —Los Angeles Reader
"Daniel Lentz’s work, with its … glossy, Pop Art-Southern California palette of colors … seems to reveal new facets with each encounter." —Dusted magazine
new work
New compositions for his newly constructed instrument The Towers, a series of large pipes and plates, and the processed voice of noted visual artist Paul McCarthy.
"The core of [Cold Blue’s] production resides in Chas Smith’s works. … this composer, guitarist and authentic desert enthusiast has developed his own soundworld using unique instruments he designs and builds himself. The heir of Harry Partch and several other instrument inventors, he has given birth to highly beautiful and formal microtonal music. It is rich in complex harmonics and often structured around alternating rising and falling movements. " — Gérard Nicollet, Octopus (France)
new work
New music written for his trio (Fink, electric guitar; Brian Walsh, woodwinds; Alex Iles, trombone).
Subtle new music with a slightly jazz-inflected feel.
"The composer ... is confirmed as a master of sensitivity and good taste. In his personal interpretation of historical minimalism, there is a warmth, a presence and a deep involvement, which is extremely rare." —Sands-Zine (Italy)
"Michael Jon Fink—operating within New Music but sidestepping much of its systematic, lab-dulled pretention ... There's something of Gavin Bryars' evanescent emotional skill to Fink's music, something of the soft spatial blur of the Evanses (Bill and Gil) ... what gets me every time is its sheer and honest beauty." —Misfit City (UK)
Café Desire
An opera
"When it comes to attempts at musical seduction, Lentz's music is way out front." —Kyle Gann, Village Voice
"By intriguing his listeners at the same time he wreathes them in smiles, Lentz always comes up with something listenable and worthwhile. That’s certainly true of this new release." — Arved Ashby, Gramophone
"Daniel Lentz’s work, with its sparkle and pulse, has long evinced hallmarks of the minimalist style. But Lentz has often brought a glossy, Pop Art-Southern California palette of colors to his work." — Dusted
blue photographs — selected piano music
Blue photographs collects a few dozen of the many aphoristic piano pieces Fox has written during the past 25 years.
"One of the striking qualities of Jim Fox's compositions is that you can still hear them inside you long after the music is over." —Wadada Leo Smith
"This is music that sounds like it was made in that California of cool northern beaches or the Mojave Desert as seen in the stark intimacy of Joshua Tree or even the remembered despair of the landscape around Donner Pass. This is a music of honesty, seductive and delicate yet strong and dark." —Daniel Lentz
