a r t i s t : David Lang
t i t l e : Pierced
d a t e : 2008
l a b e l : naxos
g e n r e : Avantgarde
r l s. d a t e : Aug/2009
t r a c k s : 05
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 67,0 MB
_______________________________________________________________________
David Lang, alongside Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon, founded
Bang on a Can in 1987 for the same reason most contemporary
composers organize ensemblesùto hear someone play their music.
Twenty-two years later, "Bang on a Can" has become as much a
movement as an organization, having gathered forces and
expanded in all directions with a tenacity that would impress
the Wu-Tang Clan. Despite their countless offshoots, side
projects, collaborations, and a growing number of disciples,
Lang, Wolfe, and Gordon remain the beating heart of BoAC, and
their shared aesthetic has come to define a wide slice of the
American contemporary classical scene.
The three tend to subsume their individual efforts into the
collective, so it is enlightening and refreshing to hear when
one of them breaks off on their own. Lang's music, released
mostly on the BoAC's Cantaloupe label, does arguably the
clearest job of defining the "Bang on a Can" sound of the
three. If we're sticking with the Wu-Tang analogy, then Lang
is the GZA figure, the one who most deftly negotiates all of
the quirks and contradictions that make BoAC's world
worthwhile and interesting. Pierced is a further refinement on
that world, a place steeped in both the New York rock and the
minimalism of the 70s without being overly indebted to either,
an ingenious meld of film-score ambience, rock propulsion, and
minimalist textures.
Lang's pieces come in two basic varieties: rippling, liquid,
and quietly restless ("My Very Empty Mouth", "Sweet Air", both
off of 2003's excellent Child ) and chattering, agitated, and
bustling. The works on Pierced fall mostly in the latter
category, which can make it a tougher listen. The title track,
for example, is a near-exhausting exercise in rhythmic rug-
pulling, a hard downbeat switching accents every few bars
while strings shudder and groan like a leaky barge and a piano
endlessly hammers a low note. The piece lurches in place for
almost 14 minutes, an equal parts maddening and absorbing
shell game of "where's-the-beat?" "Cheating, Lying, Stealing",
an older work, has a similarly spiky hide, bristling with
nervously stuttering piano, low bass-clarinet blats, and
feedback squalls, all scored by the bangs and clunks of
scrapyard-metal percussion. It resembles the sort of bracing
urban chaos that Industrial Age composers like George Antheil
sought to capture in his 1924 Ballet MΘcanique, except that
here the machinery has rusted and grown creaky with age.
There is a long, mournful moment of repose, though, in Lang's
startling reworking of the Velvet Underground's "Heroin". Art
-rock legends and classical composers often make dicey
bedfellows, but Lang wisely avoids trying to win cool contests
against Lou Reed. Maintaining the original's trancelike
quality, he ditches everything else, recasting the song for
the hauntingly pure-voiced singer/composer Theo Bleckmann and
a single cellist. The result resembles a cross between an
English Renaissance ballad and a Chet Baker-style torch song,
stripping away the thin veil of bravado and leaving only
piercing sadness. The only work that directly references rock
music, it's also the most "traditional"-sounding piece of
classical music on the album, a canny switch-up that
demonstrates how comfortable Lang is in the cross-genre
slipstream. The album isn't perfectùthere are a few dead
patches towards the endùbut Lang, who won the Pulitzer in 2008
for his Little Match Girl Passion, remains the rare Downtown
composer who has managed to enter the Uptown world of big-name
commissions and hefty grants with both his spirit and voice
intact.
--Review by Jayson Greene, Pitchfork, 20 March 2009
(http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.559615)
_______________________________________________________________________
01-Pierced [13:56]
02-Heroin (by lou reed, arranged by david lang) [11:02]
03-Cheating, Lying, Stealing [10:46]
04-How to Pray [09:59]
05-Wed [05:18]
-------
51:01 min