5:4

It’s a sign of the trust that i have in Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir’s music that, when she sent me her new album Skinweeper a few months back, i dropped everything and just pressed play. No prep, no note-reading, i didn’t even look at the track titles; i just wanted to listen,…

This morning i’m setting off for Romania, where i’ll be experiencing the cavalcade of sonic joy that is the World New Music Days. One or two things to come in my absence, and a welter of words once i get back from Bucharest.

There’s usually a fairly clear correlation for me between the duration of an album and the amount of listening required before i feel i’ve begun to make sense of it. Not quite so simple as ‘short albums = shorter time, long albums = longer’, though that’s perhaps basically true. But…

Chamber music didn’t just feature prominently at this year’s Estonian Music Days, it provided several of the festival’s most striking performances, including some of the most remarkable music i’ve heard in the 10 years i’ve been attending. Not so much in the concert given by Ireland’s Quiet Music Ensemble, which…

i’ve previously suggested that, for a while at least, use of the flute jet whistle in contemporary music ought to be subject to a lengthy moratorium, due to its excessive overuse. During some of the concerts at this year’s Estonian Music Days, i found myself wondering whether this should also…