FILAMENT

2016 GRAMMY winner for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance??Celebrated new-music sextet eighth blackbird, whose last four Cedille Records albums (including this one) have garnered GRAMMY Awards, continues to soar with FILAMENT, a sizzling selection of four-world premiere recordings, plus a concert performance of Philip Glass's influential Two Pages. The title Filament symbolizes the strong ties of friendship and shared musical interests connecting the composers and performers on the album. ??FILAMENT offers first recordings of Bryce Dessner's Murder Ballades, a fresh and surprisingly upbeat take on a macabre genre of folk music; Nico Muhly's Doublespeak, an homage to Glass and the insistent, propulsive repetitions of classic minimalism; and short pieces by Son Lux, To Love and This is my Line, creative remixes of sounds from other tracks on the CD. Dessner, on guitar, and Muhly, on organ, join eighth blackbird for Glass's Two Pages, recorded live-in-concert at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. ??A genre-spanning musician and composer, Dessner has worked with the Kronos Quartet and Bang on a Can All-Stars and created Cincinnati's MusicNOW festival. In the pop-music world, he's familiar as the guitarist with the Billboard-charting, critically acclaimed indie rock band The National. Muhly has worked with Glass and with pop musicians Bjork and Sufjan Stevens. Among his credits are 11 orchestral works and two operas, one of which was performed at the English National Opera and New York's Metropolitan Opera. ??A sextet of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, and piano, eighth blackbird combines the finesse of a string quartet, the energy of a rock band, and the audacity of a storefront theater company. The Chicago-based super-musicians (Los Angeles Times) are a polished, personable, routinely dazzling sextet (New York Times). ??Side A + Nico Muhly (b. 1981) + Doublespeak + Philip Glass (b. 1937) + Two Pages + Side B + Son Lux (b. 1979) + To Love + Bryce Dressner (b. 1976) + Murder Ballades + Omie Wise + Young Emily + Dark Holler + Wave The Sea + Brushy Fork + Pretty Polly + Tears for Sister Polly + Son Lux + This is my Line