Recording: Thin Edge New Music Collective

Artist: Thin Edge New Music Collective

Piece: Puddles [composer: Fjóla Evans]

Recorded at Array Space (Premieres VI – Keys Wind and Strings Edition), May 25, 2017.

Thin Edge New Music Collective - Puddles

Not afraid to take chamber music out of the chamber, I'd most recently caught Thin Edge in a halfpipe and at an all ages punk show. I love their enthusiasm + gusto for putting themselves in situations like that, but it was also most enjoyable to catch them back on something more like their home turf, in a room that rewards careful and close listening. The ensemble closed out their season with a two-night festival at Array Space, dedicated to the sounds of "keys, wind and strings" and featuring guest artists Olivia Steimel (accordion) and Solomiya Moroz (flute + piccolo) augmenting the core performing quartet.

This second night of the mini-fest was given over entirely to premiering new works, as is an annual tradition for Thin Edge. The night included some action sounds from Germaine Liu and a new protest song from Jason Doell (the official recording of which he already has posted over on his soundcloud). This piece from Fjóla Evans is based around the building tension of higher-pitched string drones (passing back and forth from violin to cello and back again in nice stereo slides) punctuated by piano clomps — perhaps not unlike a puddle's icy surface creaking under a winter boot before suddenly cracking.