Out Now on Nonsuch Records is Alarm Will Sound’s / Alan Pierson (arr. Stefan Freund) cover of Mochipet’s Randbient Works 2002 Classic “Dessert Search for Techno Baklava” on the album titled a/rhythmia.
Here is a Review:
Alarm Will Sound is a 20-piece ensemble that has carved out a distinctive niche for itself in the US new-music scene since it was founded at the Eastman School of Music at Rochester, New York. Their repertoire ranges from rock and electronica to mainstream modernism, and the group’s first disc for Nonesuch seems designed to show the breadth of those interests, as well as the technical virtuosity behind them. It’s an exploration of rhythm and the multitude of ways of sampling, layering and dislocating it, as exemplified in 14 short pieces. The longest works here are Michael Gordon’s Yo Shakespeare and Harrison Birtwistle’s Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum, utterly different from each other and both superbly done, while the five quirky pieces that make up Benedict Mason’s Animals and the Origins of Dance are interleaved with a movement from Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto, pieces from the 14th and 15th century, transcriptions of two of Conlon Nancarrow’s Player Piano Studies, and arrangements of techno and electronica by Mochipet and Autechre. It’s an exuberant mix, dazzlingly well played, and a startlingly good beginning to their association with Nonesuch.
