With the year nearly half over, here’s a quick rundown of some extraordinary releases that use vocals in highly distinctive ways.
Reiko Füting - Mechthild As many times as I’ve listened to this musical theater piece about the 13th Century mystic, Mechthild von Magdeburg, I continue to be unable to penetrate its craft. Obviously, composer Füting and his collaborators, most notably librettist and theologian Christian Lehnert, brought a tremendous amount of skill, talent, research, and passion to the project. As did those who bring it to vivid life on this stunning recording, including sopranos Hanna Herfurtner and Olive Stahn, who embody Mechthild’s soul and body respectively, narrator Susie Wirth, the singers of AuditivVokal Dresden, the musicians of Ensemble Adapter, and conductor Olaf Katzer. But the piece just seems to exist, as wondrous and impenetrable as the carved stone of the church where it premiered. The instrumentation is spare - flute, clarinet, celli, harp, percussion, and organ - and every sound is perfectly placed in relation to the vocals, sometimes doubling long vowel sounds or providing points of juxtaposition or emphasis. The vocal writing is layered, those gleaming sopranos weaving around the whispers of the chorus, the occasional baritone cutting in like a presiding judge. In some ways Füting’s combination of Medieval and modern not only unmoors Mechthild from time but makes a nearly alien past more present. Maybe one day I’ll search up the libretto but somehow I think the feelings and conflicts are as clear to me as they need to be, leaving me content to immerse myself in it like a dimly recalled ritual made bright, sharp, and new once again. From whatever angle I observe it, Mechthild is a flat-out masterpiece.
Roomful Of Teeth - Rough Magic When I saw this adventurous and expert vocal group open for Kronos Quartet last summer in Prospect Park, they performed a multi-movement work by Caroline Shaw based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest called The Isle. It was richly imaginative and filled with intricate overlapping melodies while making full use of the Bard’s evocative language. After all, “Full fathom five thy father lies,” already sounds like a sea shanty! When it ended, I did a quick Google before turning to my daughter and asking, “why haven’t they recorded this?” While I still don’t know the answer, at least we now have it here, in a wonderful performance on Roomful’s first full-length album in eight years. The nine singers attack the massed voices of Shaw’s score with both precision and delight, reveling in the fantastic realms of Shakespeare’s final play in a glorious tribute to the ongoing inspiration and undying humanity of his work.
But Rough Magic also holds other treasures, starting with the roller-coaster freak—out collage of William Brittelle’s Psychedelics. Giving Roomful an opportunity to pull out every tool in their kit and combining it with electronics would seem only appropriate as Brittelle was seeking to explore a breakdown from his youth. While not a traditional narrative, what comes through loud and clear is his compassion towards his younger self and a reconciliation between creativity and madness. It’s also wildly entertaining, not surprising for the composer of such works as So Long Art Decade as heard on Michi Wiancko’s marvelous Planetary Candidate. We also get Eve Beglarian’s None More Than You, with the Dessoff Choirs, and Peter J. Shin’s Bits Torn From Words, both of which address language head on, as when Beglarian has Roomful attempt to sing the opening lines of Genesis without using vowels. Captivating stuff, as is the whole album, which brings an already respected and successful group to a new level of achievement. As all these pieces were borne of deep collaboration between performers and composers, one can only imagine what the next eight years will bring!
Yaz Lancaster - AmethYst A violinist, vocalist, composer, and producer, Lancaster has assembled a richly emotional tapestry that sends off inquiries into realms of identity and connection - cultural, political, and sexual. Bringing together a variety of voices, including their own and a voicemail from their mother, and working with a deep bench of leading visual and sonic artists, including Amanda Berlind, Bakudi Scream, and Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, AmethYst is a kaleidoscopic experience, with moods ranging from searing anger to consoling calm. Their playing, amidst electronics and other accompaniments is always strong and committed, further making this an album not to be missed, a sentiment that extends to the videos.
Seth Parker Woods - Difficult Grace This astonishingly powerful album finds cellist Woods demonstrating curatorial skills that are the equal of his virtuosic playing. Frederick Gifford’s title track opens the album in a world premiere recording, Woods’ voice overlapping in what sounds like a combination of oratory and internal argument, using words devised from Primitives, a poem by Dudley Randall, as the cello swoops and grinds underneath. Calvary Ostinato from Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Lamentations: Black/Folk Song Suite follows, seeming to exemplify the concept of “difficult Grace” with a series of plucked meditations that draw on sprituals, blues, and folk. In another world premiere, Monty Adkins’ Winter Tendrils builds on the theme of lamentations with long, almost weeping lines, that then repeat in superimposed sound, gradually building up a chorus of cello voices. There are also two excellent pieces by Nathalie Joachim bookending one by Alvin Singleton, and finally a stunner by Ted Hearne, from whom I have not heard enough from since the spectacular Place from 2020. Freefucked, a setting of poems by Kemi Alabi (Absolutely on my reading list: “Beloved, last night I doused us in good bourbon/struck a match between our teeth, slid the lit head/lip to chest, throat zippered open and spilling.”) features Woods’ processed vocals and electronics, for an otherworldly experience that embraces pop and hip hop in its own unique way. Woods’ instrument almost plays a supporting role in the Hearne pieces, with the cello forming a backbone rather than at the forefront. Woods recedes a little during the last movement, letting Hearne take over on vocals - but sharing the spotlight is a kind of grace that is not at all difficult for this remarkable artist.
Lawrence Brownlee - Rising In some ways this sounds like a traditional lieder album, with Brownlee’s burnished tenor ringing out over sensitive piano accompaniment (Kevin J. Miller), even recalling the honied tones of Fritz Wunderlich at the more romantic moments. But a look at the track list, which features Black composers - Damien Sneed, Brandon Spencer, Jasmine Barnes, Joel Thompson, Shawn E. Okpebholo, Jeremiah Evans, Margaret Bonds, and Robert Owens - all setting songs by giants of the Harlem Renaissance, including James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, and Claude McKay, reveals something quite untraditional. In fact, the first five composers were all commissioned by Brownlee for the project, making for a carefully crafted experience that celebrates Black joy and strength, creating “something that speaks not just to our struggles, but to our triumphs,” as Brownlee notes, explicitly referring to the trials Black Americans have faced over the last three years. But anyone with a heart will take succor and inspiration from the sheer beauty and light radiating from this album. There are too many highlights to mention, whether Sneed’s pop song craft, which blends perfectly with Johnson’s words, or Barnes’ resonant take on McKay’s Invocation (“Thou who from out the dark and dust didst raise/The Ethiop standard in the curtained days,/Before the white God said: Let there be light!”). But the highest praise may need to be reserved for Okpebholo, whose Two Black Churches was a standout on Will Liverman and Paul Sanchez’s magnificent Dreams Of A New Day from 2021. Taking on McKay’s Romance, Okpebholo gives Brownlee an opportunity to share his lapidary falsetto in breathtaking fashion. That he barely shows any effort when scaling those heights makes the song - and the album - quite a calling card for one of our finest singers.
Ben Vida with Yarn/Wire and Nina Dante - The Beat My Head Hit A four-year collaboration between composer/performer Vida and the piano/percussion ensemble led to this hypnotic collection. With Dante and Vida’s unison vocals near murmurs, calm chords from Laura Barger’s piano, subtle sparkles from Russell Greenberg’s percussion, and cloudy electronics, it is a meditative experience over all. The words themselves are repetitive and divorced from their meaning (“more not departed…vanished oblivions reply…drawn evening…”), existing just below narrative intelligibility, allowing the listener to dip and out and take in meaning when needed. I’ve been a Yarn/Wire fan for some time, but this is the first I’ve heard of Vida - looking forward to ensuring it’s not the last.
From the archives:
Record Roundup: Autumn Flood, Pt. 1
Record Roundup: Song Forms
Record Roundup: Vox Humana
Record Roundup: Contemporary Kaleidoscope