Frith, Fred - The Happy End Problem
SKU
21-FRED FRA 05
A new recording, and instantly a Fred classic. Two, related, small-ensemble works for 6 and 7 musicians respectively - mostly strings of one sort or another, with percussion, flute and clarinet occasionally, and electronics. Fred, violinist Carla Kilsteht and percussionist Willie Wynant play throughout, providing continuity across the pieces as the music constantly unfolds into new textures and dialects. Melody, harmony and rhythm are omnipresent, though not always obviously colluding, and the music moves with constant assurance, never hesitating and never marking time. There are some affinities with Nicola Kodjbashia's luminous 'Solitary Walker' (which it predates) in its use of minimal instrumentation to maximum effect, popular materials, exquisite articulation and a kind of modest transcendence. The necessity and simplicity of these pieces conceals a catalogue of experimental techniques and novel ideas; there are those who'd have squeezed a score of albums from this material. A gem. Buy it. Carla Kilsteht shines throughout.”-Chris Cutler
“Both pieces were commissioned for choreographer Amanda Miller, with whom Fred has worked frequently over the last two decades. For Happy End Fred worked with materials from Stavinsky’s Firebird (it begins with a time-stretched version of the final chord), generating cells from the original score and re-composing with them. Imitation focuses on Orientalist elements: ‘Amanda was playing with the way Westerners “imagine” Japan, so there were certain kinds of clichés in the movement and also in the set. I was exploring the same terrain but from a musical perspective. I had a student at the time, the shakuhachi player Kiku Day, who’s Danish-Japanese. I kind of constructed the music around her really’"