Oh well. Regardless of his apparent (and fucking BARBAROUS) preference for not using a serial comma when he’s writing out a list; I suppose percussionist, composer, and marching band nerd Glenn Kotche is still a pretty damn talented and cool dude.
The latest cool thing he’s done? Well, he’s gone out and collaborated with the Percussion Ensemble from NYU on his latest album of deliriously polyrhythmic percussive insanity, Sticks, Skins, Metal and Stone. Consisting of “a compilation of past Kotche-penned compositions” (and “realized under the direction of Jonathon Haas and Sean Statser”), the eleven Kotche-penned perc. pieces on the album represent ten years’ worth of compositional refinement. The pieces range in their orchestration from “solo and duo to full percussion orchestra,” and eight of them have never been recorded before.
About that (annoyingly-punctuated) album title? As usual, the whip-smart Kotche has his cogent and utilitarian reasons:
Sticks are the most basic tools of the percussionist. They are used for striking but are also shaped and arranged into tonal bars giving the percussion family rich melodic and harmonic components. Skins are what make drums drums. Metal in it’s varied forms — both tuned and untuned — provide a world of percussion color. And stone — the most basic of materials — struck together or shaped into pitched bars creating the most primordial, yet intriguing percussion sounds. These four elements are the catalyst for the music contained in this record.
Get a taste (of some sticks and metal, at least) via the clip of “Wild Sound” streaming down below, and grab the full album — which releases this Friday, October 26 — from Williamsburg-based National Sawdust Tracks right here.
[Visit full site to view media]Sticks, Skins, Metal and Stone by Glenn Kotche
Sticks, Skins, Metal and Stone tracklisting:
01. Wild Sound
02. Clapping Music Variations
03. Traveling Turtle for Percussion Ensemble
04. Anomaly Movement 7 Marimba Duo
05. Stones Flow
06. Cave Dance
07. Transfencia
09. Hush
10. Ping Pong Fumble Thaw for Percussion Quartet
11. Fantasy On a Shona Theme