Ensemble Dedalus, Didier Aschour – Lamb : Atmospheres Transparent/Opaque (2019) [FLAC 24 bit, 44,1 kHz]

Ensemble Dedalus, Didier Aschour – Lamb : Atmospheres Transparent/Opaque (2019) [FLAC 24 bit, 44,1 kHz]

This recording is an excellent introduction to the distinctive sound world of Catherine Lamb (b. 1982), who studied with James Tenney and Michael Pisaro, in that it documents a recent large-scale piece that epitomizes her compositional aesthetic, Prisma Interius IX (2018), and was recorded under the composer’s supervision. “I have been attempting to describe, in more elemental terms, the perceptual roles between musicians who are activating interactions in harmonic space. Overlays Transparent/Opaque (2013) was an initial attempt towards showing forms aside phenomenological clarities in which to enter from relational and therefore parallaxical points, in this case through shifting overlays………the seven overlays are in constant flux, but the forms are synoptic, placed on their own and in their own space, as objects. Prisma Interius IX (2018), in contrast, would be one large crystal placed amongst the musicians, rotating with filtered light. So that each unfolding of the tonalities illuminates the form that is always present, allowing for a feeling of constant expansion…. Prisma Interius IX is the culmination of a series of pieces written between late 2016 to summer 2018, examining particular (perhaps archaic) musical roles, and how they situate within the phenomenological/perceptual space my work has been growing into for the past 14 years.” ~~ Catherine Lamb