KBCS

Sci-fi opera takes center stage on this edition of Flotation Device, as we dive into Michel van der Aa’s Upload in its premiere recording, contrasting its theme of immortality gained through transferring one’s consciousness to the digital realm to Tod Machover’s Death and the Powers, as well as the original science fiction opera, Karl-Birger Blomdahl’s Aniara, set aboard a doomed spaceship.

We also sample the latest recorded works by Sciarrino, Adès, Christian Wolff, Younghi Pagh-Paan and Ryan Carter, and introduce ourselves to the sparse, delicate piano music of Bolivian composer Cergio Prudencio (via a new portrait album from Kairos). Pablo Ribot offers avant-electronica from Argentina, while Satoko Fujii and Otomo Yoshihide record together for the first time. John Zorn and Bill Laswell follow their own duet inclinations, as do Christian Bucher with Rick Countryman, and Gerald Cleaver with Brandon Lopez (the latter pair heard through the electronic post-filtering of hip-hop electronicist HPrizm). A newly-excavated Derek Bailey outing from 1982, plus João Lencastre’s international quartet and Austin Larkin’s solo violin, round out the proceedings. Creative and improvised music from the Northwest and around the world with host Michael Schell.