KBCS

Flotation Device celebrates composer, conductor and longtime Seattle stalwart Gerhard Samuel for his centenary, featuring an exclusive broadcast of his rarely heard orchestral gem Looking At Orpheus Looking, recorded live at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music (which Samuel co-founded). We also dive into the premiere recordings of Helmut Lachenmann’s My Melodies, Kaikhosru Sorabji’s mammoth Third Toccata and Josh Modney’s uncompromising Ascending Primes, which manages to remind us of both Conlon Nancarrow and Carla Bley. Nancarrow has his own cameo appearance via one of his unique player piano studies, and John Cage, Alice Coltrane, Anthony Braxton, Joe McPhee and Jeanne Lee all make their own historical presence felt. New albums from David Leon, Rhodri Davies, Pasquale Corrado, John Butcher and Langham Research Center round out the playlist.

Indigenous music and instruments take the spotlight in this show as we sample Cergio Prudencio’s new album with Bolivia’s Orquesta Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos, and preview the COVID-delayed premiere of Janice Giteck’s Potlatch Symphony 2020 with Swil Kanim and Seattle Symphony. We also explore some second-generation minimalism, ranging from the glitchy discombobulations of Carl Stone to the disorienting heterostasis of Bryn Harrison, while Weston Olencki and Michael Bonaventure offer different flavors of stuttery electroacoustica. We pay our respects to composer Aribert Reimann, survey a late piano piece by the late Frederic Rzewski in its premiere recording, and listen to Wadada Leo Smith and Andrew Cyrille's tribute to Jeanne Lee (who’ll be the subject of our own tribute on next week’s show). New albums by Philip Zoubek and the Adjunct Ensemble—plus lo-fi music from Matthew Shlomowitz that’s not to study to—round out the playlist.

Concert previews return to Flotation Device as we look forward to the Kronos Quartet’s April 11 appearance at Seattle’s Moore Theatre, plus Seattle Chamber Orchestra’s April 12 premiere of Jack Van Zandt’s La Nuit Étoilée (after van Gogh). We also continue our recent Scelsi retrospective by examining his influence over Tristan Murail. Plus we wish saxophonist Evan Parker a happy 80th birthday, check out a John Adams miniature written for Marin Alsop, and commence a deep dive into Josh Modney’s new monument to complex hybrid composition: Ascending Primes. We’ve also got avant-electronica from Belgium and Ukraine, and a pair of alternatingly austere and spiky compositions by one of Germany’s leading composers, Wolfgang Rihm. Cameo appearances by Frank Zappa and Mary Halvorson’s Amaryllis Sextet round out this wide-ranging playlist.

In this program we pay our respects to the late Hungarian avant-gardist Peter Eötvös, celebrate the centenary of the Croatian composer Milko Kelemen, and mark the 50th anniversary of several noteworthy premieres, recorded performances and album releases from March 1974 that will lead us to relate Morton Feldman to the late Richard Serra, Miles Davis to Stockhausen (and thence to Eötvös), and George Crumb to Giacinto Scelsi (and both to Berio). We continue our recounting of The Residents’ origin myth in honor of their golden anniversary, while new offerings by Matthew Shlomowitz, Gabriel Prokofiev, Wadada Leo Smith, Joe Morris, Min Xiao-Fen, Sam Shalabi, Gordon Grdina, Christian Lillinger and Sweden’s Space trio remind us that the influence of all those aforementioned groundbreakers remains strong today.

Flotation Device celebrates Michael Nyman's 80th birthday with a mini-retrospective ranging from his famous film music through his more exploratory ensemble works. We contrast his exuberant postminimalism with the more austere loops and glitches of Bernhard Lang (via his new triple CD) and the maximalism of Nyman’s contemporary and compatriot Brian Ferneyhough (through our 50 years ago in the avant-garde feature). A more haunting kind of repetitive music is pursued by Joe Santa Maria and the Sound-In collective, while Adam Rudolph and David Leon assemble multicultural ensembles. Wayne Horvitz and Fred Frith deliver new solo improvisations, and Rudolf Eb.er, Alice Kemp and the Matthew Shipp Trio offer new concepts in ritual and piano trio performance. A preview of Joël-François Durand’s upcoming premiere with the Mivos Quartet by way of his new portrait album on Kairos records rounds out this eclectic program. KBCS’s spring fund drive concludes with this show, so we’d love it if you could contribute whatever your means allow to help keep this music on the air in the Northwest and show that we have a community that cherishes and supports creative musicians. Just go online to KBCS.FM and click Donate. Thanks!

It’s Spring Fund Drive time at 91.3 KBCS, an opportunity to contemplate where else you're gonna catch the latest recordings by Sam Shalabi (straddling Nubian oud music and international free improv), Joan Tower (the doyenne of American orchestral music), Bernhard Lang and Sarah Maria Sun (with an ambitious setting of William S. Burroughs' posthumously published The Travel Agency is on Fire), Lea Bertucci and Lawrence English (doing transcontinental dark ambient) and the late Kaija Saariaho (via a cello+organ piece getting its first recording). We’ll say goodbye to Wally Shoup (1944–2024), one of the Northwest’s most admired free improvisers, and we’ll commence our retelling of The Residents’ origin myth as we approach the 50th anniversary of their debut album—espying their ongoing influence in a quirky new single from Yikii. Cameos by Michael Nyman and Shelley Hirsch round out the offerings from the Northwest’s premiere radio show devoted to new and exploratory music.

A mix of familiar and less-familiar names mingle in this cavalcade of new releases as we sample the latest from Gabriel Prokofiev, Unsuk Chin, Vivian Fung, Philip Zoubek, Sara Glojnarić and Seattle’s own Melia Watras. We also celebrate the 90th birthday of Christian Wolff (the last surviving member of John Cage's inner circle from the 1950s) with a classic work performed by pianist Frederic Rzewski (who sings and accompanies himself with a hi-hat and kick drum while playing). We also celebrate the 50th anniversary of Peter Maxwell Davies’ chamber opera Miss Donnithorne's Maggot, wherein a old woman sings of a broken heart and a rotting, uneaten wedding cake. Fred Frith marks his own 75th birthday and the 50th anniversary of his Guitar Solos album with a reannotated reissue of that classic of English avant-guitarism. And we preview Tim Berne’s upcoming appearance at The Royal Room, noting his and John Zorn’s common debt to Ornette Coleman and Julius Hemphill. We close with a long look at Zorn the organist via the just-released recording of his 70th birthday performance at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, which he dedicated to Terry Riley.

This eclectic program begins with a survey of new improvised tracks by Gordon Grdina, Christian Lillinger, Satoko Fujii and Adam Rudolph. James Weeks and the Ekmeles vocal ensemble revisit Italian madrigals using 31-tone equal temperament, while Osnat Netzer does the same with Beckett and Herbie Mann. Ches Smith attempts a meeting of minds between disco, hip-hop and Beethoven string quartets, while Sam Rivers tackles atonal bebop using a big band (via our 50 years ago in the avant-garde feature). We preview harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani’s upcoming appearance at Town Hall Seattle with a look at an Anahita Abbasi composition that will receive its US premiere, accompanied by a conversation between Anahita and host Michael Schell. Finally, a cherishingly selected closing set offers chill music by the late Phill Niblock (featuring what may be his most beautiful drone ever, created just months before his death), Éliane Radigue (a work that she premiered at Niblock’s loft half a century ago), Rhys Chatham (a 2014 duet with Z'EV that’s just gotten its premiere release) and Ewa Trebacz (a fixed-media piece straddling the worlds of dark ambient and acousmatic music). Creative and improvised music from the Northwest and around the world.

Flotation Device takes a fresh look at some recently-featured items whose reception suggests they’re worth hearing a second time. We revisit some creative music history via Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton and several newly-unearthed Lennie Tristano free tracks, contrasting them with contemporary free improv from China, Greece and Indonesia. We’ll honor the legacies of the late cornetist Ron Miles, the eccentric Texan Jerry Hunt (inspired by his recent retrospective exhibit at Blank Forms), and the unconventional French vocalist Ghédalia Tazartès. A bit of nostalgia for silent movies and long German words, plus fusion music by Mako Sica and Hound Dog Taylor’s Hand, rounds out this eclectic playlist.

Flotation Device previews Seattle Opera's Northwest premiere of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X with a look at its musical sources (including Anthony Davis’s contemporaneous Epistēmē band), its position in music theater history, and the composer's recent revision as captured in a new recording by Odyssey Opera (BMOP). We also celebrate the 75th birthday of Fred Frith with a Henry Cow recording supplied by our 50 years ago in the avant-garde department, which will also offer up contemporaneous tracks by soprano sax reviver Steve Lacy, scat singing liberator Jeanne Lee, and even Jethro Tull, via an oddity unveiled in 2002 after languishing in the vaults for three decades. Also consigned to oblivion for decades (by its cantankerous composer) was Opus Clavicembalisticum, the notorious 4½ hour piano tome by the English Parsi Kaikhosru Sorabji, released from a performance ban 46 years after its composition, and just recorded in its entirety by Daan Vandewalle. We’ve got 30 minutes of highlights queued up, enough for you to decide whether it’s the work of a visionary genius or a headstrong amateur.

Flotation Device celebrates Henry Threadgill’s 80th birthday with a career retrospective for this acclaimed reed player, composer, Vietnam veteran and bandleader that emphasizes his fondness for unusual instrumentation. We sample combos with four basses, two tubas, and other oddball configurations, and we espy the influence of his approach to collective improvisation in Mahakala Music's new Miserere album, whose seven diverse participants also draw inspiration from a particular 11th century Gregorian hymn that we've enlisted as a music history refresher for those interested in the origins of do re mi. Meanwhile, Veli Kujala and James Moore compose for microtonal accordion and harp, Derek Bailey jams with Bill Evans’ drummer Paul Motian, and Evans himself is heard in a strange studio recording that mixes modal jazz, minimalism and 70s-style TV music—brought to us by our 50 years ago in the avant-garde feature, which also honors a boisterous landmark composition by Alfred Schnittke and a more modest work by Luciano Berio, both premiered on the same weekend in February 1974.

Julius Hemphill takes the spotlight in this edition of Flotation Device, as his signature tune Dogon A.D. shows its influence in several new recordings of creative music. Simeon ten Holt, whose career arc bent more toward minimalism, also gets some retrospective attention via a new recording of his complete piano works, including several premiere recordings as well as his famous Canto Ostinato. We also preview Randall Woolf’s upcoming premiere with Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra, sample avant-rock from Christopher Hoffman, and tour the world with Osnat Netzer, Adam Rudolph, Joao Lencastre, Cergio Prudencio and Yikii. Our 50 years ago in the avant-garde feature espies Ginastera channeling his inner Schoenberg, while Julia Purgina channels Bacon, Muybridge and Messiaen. Creative and improvised music from the Northwest and around the world with host Michael Schell.

Steven Mackey joins Flotation Device to talk about his new theater piece Memoir, which receives its Northwest premiere on February 2nd at Seattle Symphony’s Octave 9 space. We’ll sample Steven’s music, and discuss his journey from rock guitarist to modernist composer to fusion artist (and how his late mother inspired works like Memoir and his violin concerto Beautiful Passing). Death plays a much darker role in the music of Luigi Nono, who’ll get a retrospective look in honor of his centenary. We’ll also revisit the more conciliatory music of John Tavener for what would have been his 80th birthday. An Ursula Mamlok premiere recording, plus new improvised and fixed-media tracks by Mary Halvorson, Kate Gentile, Doug Haire, Philip Zoubek, International Contemporary Ensemble, The Late Unpleasantness, Mats Gustafsson and Tani Tabbal round out this high-impact program.

Music from Dowland to Cage and beyond takes the spotlight in this edition of Flotation Device. Sting and Ensemble 1604 use Dowland’s Flow My Tears as a springboard for contemporary expression with a mix of old and new instruments. The Calato trio from Buenos Aries offers an updated take on Cage’s Variations II, while the late Amelia Cuni is remembered by her unique adaptation of traditional Indian dhrupad singing to Cage’s Song Books. We also dabble in the occult, via John Corigliano’s just-recorded opera The Lord of Cries, which recounts the story of The Bacchae using the characters of Dracula. We’ll use the 80th birthday of Pehr Henrik Nordgren (1944–2008) to present our case for declaring him the most important Finnish composer between Sibelius and Saariajo. And new improv from Philip Zoubek, Joe Santa Maria, Alexander Hawkins and Nicole M. Mitchell, plus dark ambient from Greece and drippy quartertone accordion music from England round out the playlist.

Flotation Device says goodbye to two of minimalism's OGs: Phill Niblock and John White. We sample their music, contemplate their role in the development of drone music and English minimalism respectively, and look for their influence among younger musicians. We also sample a stack of new recordings featuring intriguing new works by Myra Melford, Russ Johnson, Cassandra Miller, James Moore, Langham Research Centre and Hound Dog Taylor's Hand, plus music about witchcraft and death, and a Stockhausen tune used as a free improv vehicle.

Arvo Pärt’s latest album on ECM offers new chamber orchestra versions of earlier vocal works. We give it a spin, alongside minimalist Andean salsa by Mirlitorrinco, joyful but heterodox choral music by Philip Corner, and the first recording of Abyss and Caress, a thorny trumpet concerto by the American bohemian Lucia Dlugoszewski (1931–2000). Plus we pay our respects to Francis Dhomont, Yehuda Yannay and Tony Oxley (with help from Cecil Taylor). And our 50 years ago in the avant-garde feature uncovers January 1974 premieres by Hans Werner Henze and the drumming duo of Milford Graves and Andrew Cyrille. A last look at Elsa Bergman’s graphically-inclined Playon Crayon and Kate Gentile’s extraterrestrially-inclined b i o m e i.i albums, and fixed-media soundscapes by Seattle’s Steve Layton and Xiu Xiu's Hyunhye Seo round out the program.

Spend New Year’s Eve with Flotation Device as we wrap up 2023 with a selection of seasonal and fireworks-themed curiosities accompanying one last festive look at some of our favorite albums of radical music from the past year. Sun Ra, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix and The Residents will help drive the revelry with cameo appearances, while Chen Yi, Oliver Knussen and a young Igor Stravinsky will help brace us for the noise that awaits at midnight. Our 50 years ago in the avant-garde feature rounds out the playlist with a remarkable historical item from the Philippines celebrating its golden anniversary on New Year's Day.

Suffering from holiday fatigue? Tune in to our Christmas Eve special, designed for people who are tired of stereotypical Christmas music. We’ve enlisted Sun Ra, John Zorn, Miles Davis, John Cage, The Residents, The Flecktones, Leonard Bernstein (who's been in the spotlight lately), James Brown, Tansy Davies and many others in a wide-ranging, cringe-free medley of alternative holiday classics ideal for anyone who's had enough of carols and The Messiah.

In this episode we commence our annual retrospective of the most compelling new releases of creative and improvised music to come along in 2023. Leading the pack are three very different kinds of East meets West, ranging from Yikii’s brash solo machinery, to an Iseul Kim duet that ambiguously straddles jazz, folk and composed idioms, on to EunHo Chang’s Sensational Bliss: a collection of short pieces for a mix of Western and Korean instruments and voices that's kind of a cross-cultural Pierrot Lunaire for the 21st century. We also sample relentless orchestral and chamber works by Jóhann Jóhannsson and Eric Wubbels, an offbeat take on Celtic ballads from London Experimental Ensemble with Richard Thompson, synth music from beyond the ether by the late Norm Chambers, off-kilter rhythms from Kate Gentile and Pasquale Corrado, and free improv from Nicole Mitchell, Alexander Hawkins, the Horvitz/Morris/Previte trio and Mamer (performing on the obscure Central Asian sherter). A Philip Glass cameo commemorating the 50th anniversary of one of his minimalist landmarks plus an unusual new rendition of Terry Riley’s In C (the most landmarky of all minimalist landmarks) round out the playlist.

Our 50 years ago in the avant-garde feature gets a little crazy with Frank Zappa’s legendary December ’73 engagement at the Roxy Theatre in Hollywood, featuring an octet that included Ruth Underwood (his most notable female collaborator) and George Duke (the only musician to tour with both Zappa and Miles Davis). In this program we spend half an hour contemplating why many regard this band as Zappa’s best ever, and another half-hour espying the ongoing influence of his rock-centered harmonic and rhythmic explorations on the contemporary landscape of experimental fusion music. We then turn our attention to Steve Reich, and the golden anniversary of one of his most austere works, also unveiled in December 1973 amidst a creative period characterized by more ambitious compositions (including Music for 18 Musicians). As with Zappa, we hunt for Reich’s influence in brand-new minimalist-inflected items by Kara-Lis Coverdale and Susan Alcorn. We also take a look at Paul Dessau’s allegorical opera Lanzelot, premiered in East Berlin in 1969, but only now receiving its first recording. Is its malevolent city-ruling dragon a metaphor for capitalism as Dessau claimed, or was the composer secretly giving the finger to East German apparatchiks? Either way, the music is a delightful mix of modernist, jazz and folk influences that’s well worth having on record. Some haunting electroacoustic sonorities from the Northwest's foremost practitioner of dark ambient music, Marc Barreca, plus a new album of mixed chamber works from the Italian composer Pasquale Corrado, and fresh improv from the Bucher-Countryman-Hori trio, round out the playlist.