“Deane is a soulfully expressive musician and, despite the calm and coolness of Peters's music, his interpretation has immediate emotional appeal as well as seductive depth." —Julian Cowley, The Wire

"A gorgeous, minimal piece ... Solemn and spacious ... Subtle music for late evenings." —Vital Weekly

Peters’ music … has in abundance what I miss in so much new American music: strong commitment to an aesthetic goal, and adherence to that goal without compromise. …Bring on more Steve Peters!” —Sequenza21

“Pure, restrained and rigorously beautiful.” —Alvin Curran

"The music of John Luther Adams is simply beautiful. It has a crystalline quality and a peaceful character that evoke the Arctic life. . . . Adams’ music sounds like it has nothing to accomplish. It simply exists, hanging in mid-air, waiting to be listened to." —All-Music Guide

"Adams's music can be superficially described as the intersection of two diverse influences: Feldman and Cowell . . . his scores bear the ubiquitous marks of Cowell's multitempoed rhythmic structures . . . The Feldman influence manifests itself as a delight in delicately balanced sonorities used as recurring images . . . The variety of dreamy textures Adams achieves with a few simple materials is lovely." —Kyle Gann, American Music in the 20th Century

"The sound of this music is that of overlapping planes of sound … this is music from someone who knows who he is and what he wants." —Fanfare

"I was transfixed by the haunting sounds and the poetic pacing of Fahres' music on this CD. Rather than the sound floating through the room, it was as if I was floating in the sound." —Morton Subotnick

"An exceptionally well-composed album, comprising very well-thought out concepts that have been delivered in an utmost ingenious and abstract way." —Unknown Public (UK)

"Fahres is skillful in creating drama and blending the recorded materials into intriguing, musically satisfying soundscapes. The Tubes, which lasts over 30 minutes, is an especially impressive achievement." —All-Music Guide

"This is the kind of recording that lets you get wondrously lost in someone else’s sound world." —Sequenza21

"Palestine has a way of choosing notes so as to tremendously affect the thickness of the sound and create panoramic variety (and even microtonal anomalies) among the overtone masses he is creating, sort of a one-man acoustic Glenn Branca symphony." —Kyle Gann, Village Voice

"Palestine's work offers sonic sculptures to be thoroughly inspected and savored at every moment." —Dean Suzuki, Wired magazine

"A sensuous and compelling sonic experience." —All-Music Guide

"A compelling concert experience." —Sequenza21

"An experience never less than pleasurable." —Int'l Record Review

"Driving energies darting and thrusting toward unseen destinations. On the Leopard Altar is a study of sonic polish and forward motion." —Mix

"On the Leopard Altar, with its multiple vocal, keyboard and wineglass parts, haunting neo-romantic melodies, and unusual additive and subtractive structures is a remarkable collection. 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

"When it comes to attempts at musical seduction, Daniel Lentz's music is way out front." —Kyle Gann, Village Voice

"...a ravishing suite of compositions...one doesn't merely listen but rather surrenders to its seductive pull." —Ron Schepper, Signal to Noise

"Chas Smith composes and performs epic soundscapes . . . music that reflects the wide-open spaces of the American West. . . . closer attention reveals his subtle layering of instrumental textures. The overall effect is of a shimmering, reverberating soundscape, extraordinarily evocative of the boundless spaces that clearly inspired it: an endless desert under a throbbing sun." —The Wire

"Smith is surely also one of the most original composers working anywhere today." —Int'l Record Review

"Chas Smith's pedal steel and 12 string dobro are as evocative and quintessentially American as a crackling neon light outside a desert motel at sunset." —Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic

"The two long pieces that make up most of Smith's new release, Descent, are his most powerful and focused work yet." —Kevin Macneil Brown, Dusted Magazine

"...if this is a long night, let it go on and on." —Marc Geelhoed, TimeOut Chicago

"It’s a beautiful and original piece, with ‘family’ links to such composers as Harry Partch, Henry Cowell, Conlon Nancarrow, and John Cage, and with allusions to ‘nature’ and the ‘East’." —Int'l Record Review

"Kyle Gann is ... a commanding presence in the landscape of American music. ... his music is passionate, fiercely intelligent and one of a kind. Gann's music embraces a broad range of influences but sounds like no other." —John Luther Adams, NewMusicBox (American Music Center)

"If I had my way, Sarah Cahill would be declared a public treasure and forbidden to ever leave the city limits." —Berkeley Voice

"... one of the most engrossing records this year so far—and one of those instances when, in terms of duration, less is not more."—Massimo Ricci, Paris Transatlantic

"Rick is a hidden master of the crepuscular and the diaphanous." —Ry Cooder

"If you imagine floating through the night sky on a large abstract tapestry, you’ll get a feeling for what Cox’s music is like." —Fanfare

"... the music of Rick Cox ... its tones and timbres are subtle and suggestive, exploring a dark world where strange things are happening in the shadows." —Incursion Music Review

" ... lush bleakness that evokes the windswept open spaces of the American West. ... brooding lyricism ... music that seems to linger even after the recording has ended." —John Schaefer, WNYC, New Sounds

"... a work of noble mourning; its ... playing that is full-bodied and unerringly precise, the string textures glow warmly." —Int'l Record Review

"… immediately appealing … " —Raymond Tuttle, ClassicalNet

"... aural poetry, like an inscription on a tombstone to be read with a faint smile instead of tear-stained eyes."—Paris Transatlantic

"You won't want to listen to anything for a while after you've heard this." —Frank J. Oteri, NewMusicBox (American Music Center)

“Beautiful and evocative work.” —John Schaefer, WNYC, New Sounds

"Though just under 23 minutes, The City and Wind Swept Away . . . seems to linger in the air (and the ear) much longer. Delicate and open throughout." —Molly Sheridan, NewMusicBox (American Music Center)

"Attentiveness to the integrity of slowly passing sound events can be a strangely moving experience. It is so here." —Int’l Record Review (UK)

"Music that . . . feels as if it could go on endlessly . . . music that comes from the classical tradition, but that feels like it belongs somewhere other than the concert hall, . . . texturally rich, meticulously crafted and delicately beautiful." —Dusted magazine

"When it comes to attempts at musical seduction, Daniel 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." — Gramophone

"Sonically dense music . . . music of near orchestral force and scope." —Molly Sheridan, NewMusicBox (American Music Center)

"One is immediately immersed in a beautiful landscape" —ClassicalNet

"An impressive, beautiful CD single that offers up a seamless, elegant ‘cloud’ of sound" —Gramophone

"Dense, slowly changing sounds, atmospherically gloomy and harmonically quite subtle." —The Musical Times (London)

"A Temperament is much darker than its title might suggest—informed, as it is, by the harsher concept of terrifying beauty written of by Rilke... a steely sonic environment . —NewMusicBox (Amer. Music Center)

"A miniature masterpiece." —Sands-Zine (Italy)

"Pure, restrained and rigorously beautiful." —Alvin Curran

"The work of Steve Peters is of excellent quality. ... the suspended resonances and the ethereal voice of Marghreta Cordero create a fantastic atmosphere, mystical and visionary." —Sands-Zine (Italy)

"Open-space lyricism and beatific atmosphere . . .vivid, stark, and alluring." —Dusted

"This is a gentle, social, considerate piece; each component supports and is supported, sheltered and given shelter, by the others." —Int’l Record Review (UK)

"Cold Blue's little 'ism'-skirting discs . . . a whole wonderful world of new sounds." —John Schaefer, Producer of WNYC's New Sounds

"So mesmerized I can hardly quit listening to it." —Kyle Gann, Arts Journal

"Decidedly cool—in hipness quotient and emotional temperament. Beguiling..." —Josef Woodard, Santa Barbara Independent

"The sounds are spare, wistful, innocent and soft-spoken, often beautiful in a way no other music is." —Arved Ashby, Gramophone

". . . defines a certain ‘Southern California sound." —L.A. Weekly

"Highly recommended" —Sequenza 21

"One is reminded not only of the time-bound nature of sculpture (one must move around a piece to fully experience it), but the mobiles of Alexander Calder, which are both fixed and moving. And, like Calder's work, Byron's music is immediately comprehensible and beautiful, while it remains experimental." —Dean Suzuki, San Francisco Bay Guardian

"It’s wonderful that music can have such power to (en)lighten the soul and that Michael has the gift to so empower us." —Richard Teitelbaum

"Byron creates maximalist effect out of minimalist means." —ClassicalNet

"Like famed composer and instrument builder Harry Partch, whom Smith readily acknowledges as an influence, Smith creates unsettling music that is both beautiful and eerie." —Electronic Musician magazine

"Smith has a penchant for long tones and drones, as well as an ear and love for magnificent sonorities. From his creations, as well as his pedal steel guitar, he elicits sounds that suggest thunder, approaching jetliners, electronics, screeching machinery, and much, much more. And he doesn't merely string together gimmicky sounds; he integrates them into sumptuous compositions that range from delicate, lyrical vignettes to grating, sometimes horrific tone poems." —Dean Suzuki, San Francisco Bay Guardian

"Whenever I hear this music I am mesmerized by something I can only call truth." —Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams and Of Wolves and Men

"Adams's music can be superficially described as the intersection of two diverse influences: Feldman and Cowell . . . his scores bear the ubiquitous marks of Cowell's multitempoed rhythmic structures . . . The Feldman influence manifests itself as a delight in delicately balanced sonorities used as recurring images . . . The variety of dreamy textures Adams achieves with a few simple materials is lovely." —Kyle Gann, American Music in the 20th Century

"Landscape pieces, long, sustained harmonies with puffs of arctic winds blowing the sound one way or another . . . as much snow-strewn color as sound (but pleasurable in either guise). . . beautifully played. — L.A. Weekly

"This West Coaster-turned-Dartmough prof is the heir apparent to the Cowell/Nancarrow/Tenney genius experimentalist mantle." —Kyle Gann, Village Voice

"An unashamedly tactile approach to musical material, forging an oblique angle to tradition. . . . cool and elegant . . . it’s a mark of his resourceful mind that he can adapt the basic rules into a series of such complex and varied works . . . . Polansky’s canons show the extreme liberties that can be born from such exacting discipline, given imagination and willing." —The Wire

"This is one of the best discs Cold Blue music has issued since the company’s revival two years ago." —Int'l Record Review

"Recommended." —All-Music Guide

"An anthology with many voices, distinct yet united under the label's vision of presenting some of the most innovative and accomplished new music coming out of the American west coast." —Incursion Music Review

"This reissue is cause for celebration for the famished record scavengers who've been hunting it down since it disappeared." —Signal to Noise

"Throughout, the music communicates the excitement of the new, the fresh, the experimental: most of the pieces convey a sense of delight and wonder in the sheer creative freedom of their approach to sound." —Int'l Record Review

"In turns beautiful, expressive, contemplative and haunting. Recommended." —Incursion Music Review

"Warm dronic music that shimmers in sensuality. . . . just plain old beautiful music . . . delicate music." —21st Century Music magazine

"The performances are about as ego-free as one can find, and they seem indivisible from the compositions themselves." —Fanfare

"A rarefied atmosphere and great subtlety in the interweaving of the structure." —Il Manifesto (Italy)

"A seamless collection of quiet, ruminative chamber pieces. . . . with Walker’s warm and very human tone taking the part of guide and companion. In the best Cold Blue tradition there is plenty of room for the listener here." —Dusted magazine

"Rick is a hidden master of the crepuscular and the diaphanous." — Ry Cooder

"Gently undulating melodies are held in soft focus, without becoming cloying; his enveloping harmonies are less innocent than they first appear. Prettiness with a tough core." —The Wire

"Very cinematic, it seems structured in tableaux of varying densities and hues." —All-Music Guide

"Its tones and timbres are subtle and suggestive . . . strange things are happening in the shadows." —Incursion Music Review

". . . musical experiences utterly out of the ordinary. . . . Smith's pieces are music of experiment and discovery: a way of enabling the physical world to 'speak' by investigating, harnessing and organizing its sonic properties. The extraordinary sound-world of Smith's articulately structured music captivates from the start." — International Record Review

"His music is a sound apart" —Los Angeles Times

"With Smith's music, the sounds are as compelling as his concepts and instruments." —The Wire

"Smith, musician, composer, engineer, metal craftsman and inventor is a classic American original." —New Times (Los Angeles)

". . . unapologetically tranquil . . . coaxing substance from seemingly vaporous materials." — Los Angeles Times

"Spare, refined, wholesome, satisfying. . . harmonically beguiling. . . . Fink is on to something. Check it out" —Michael Barone, Minnesota Public Radio

". . . the ethereal feel of Satie and the dreaminess of Debussy." —All-Music Guide

"All very evocative." —International Record Review

". . . think Satie and Morton Feldman, and you come close to the overall mood . . . the thinking-listener's slow lane." —Michael Barone, Minnesota Public Radio

". . . each piece carries a quiet charm that immediately draws in the listener's attention. . . . If, like me, you have a soft spot for the clarinet's melancholy, you won't want to miss this disc, shimmering like light "dancing on water." —Incursion Music Review

"The playing and the recording quality are sparkling." —21st Century Music

"Suffused with a beautiful sadness." — Fanfare

"An austere, ethereal experience." — The Wire

"Sounds that seem to echo across a timeless void. Imagine a view of the sky on a brilliantly clear night, from an uninhabited part of the world: Fox’s music invites one to believe that if the stars, constellations and galaxies emitted sounds, these unearthly harmonics are what one might hear." —International Record Review

"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

"Pieces lovely in their cloudy string textures and abrupt piano riffs. . . it all breathes the air of pre-Silicon Valley California." —Kyle Gann, Village Voice

"It's wonderful that music can have such power to (en)lighten the soul and that Michael has the gift to so empower us." —Richard Teitelbaum

"Cascades of swirling music . . . sincere, technically challenging musical art with a distinct point of view." —Fanfare

"Deeply engaging pieces." —International Record Review

"Like famed composer and instrument builder Harry Partch, whom Smith readily acknowledges as an influence, Smith creates unsettling music that is both beautiful and eerie." —Electronic Musician magazine

"Meditative alien soundscapes where time comes to a halt . . . a beautiful aural experience . . . Definitely recommended." —All-Music Guide

". . . really nice sounds here, and the resulting musical constructions are quite beautiful." —Fanfare

"Ethereal and atmospheric . . . truculent and aggressive" — Dean Suzuki

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