John Cage
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Part of the Ogreogress label's project to record the late, so-called "number pieces" of John Cage, this disc contains three versions of "One 6" and one of "One 10" performed by Christina Fong on violin and viola (occasionally overdubbed). "One 6" is a fairly harsh work, largely consisting of single, minutely varying lines held for 20 to 30 seconds interspersed with silent periods of similar length. Listeners may be reminded of Tony Conrad's experiments in microtonal violin drones, although the austerity of these works may also recall some of Alvin Lucier's more rarefied compositions. Fong, however, elicits a palpable emotionalism that those composers tend to eschew. Her playing throughout is tough, intelligent, and richly sonorous. The three variations are pitched slightly differently with a lower, grainier attack in the first contrasting with a higher, more liquid approach in the second. The third, longest version combines aspects of both and also ups the intensity level. "One 10" is structurally similar but pitched higher still, injecting an airy, sometimes flute-like quality. One feature that holds here (and in the following disc) is that the stretches of silence are not "live" time where the performer just stops playing, but are portions of dead air. This can be a little off-putting, as the listener clearly loses the room ambience -- although it might be argued that it thrusts you with extra force into the sound world you're actually occupying. The astringency of these pieces sets them off against the relative lushness of works like "Twenty-Three" and "Twenty-Six" (see the related Ogreogress release), but provides its own unique kind of reward insofar as making you hyper-aware of your surroundings. Recommended. Brian Olewnick, All Music Guide Tracks:
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