Kronos Quartet is an ensemble that needs little introduction — the San Francisco-based group recently celebrated their 50th anniversary, and in this half century, they have been at the forefront of contemporary music. The group was founded after violinist David Harrington heard a performance of George Crumb’s Black Angels, and they have since cultivated a long history of cross-genre and multidisciplinary work, particularly in the past 25 years. Their newest album, ZonelyHearts (Jun. 26, CMC Centrediscs), showcases more than a decade of close collaboration with Canadian composer Nicole Lizée, who specializes in electroacoustic and multimedia music. The four pieces on the album are a testament to their evolving relationship and practices, born of both parties’ adventurous and eclectic approaches.
Lizée’s works for Kronos (and much of her larger body of work) are animated by key touchpoints from the almost century-long history of electronic sound and music. Each piece serves as both a love letter to electronic music history and an interrogation of these cultural relics and moments; Lizée takes fragments and impressions and reimagines them in swirling, kaleidoscopic textures that pass through the quartet and electronics, which thread these pieces together.
Death to Kosmische (2010) is a reference to the ‘70s German electronic genre Kosmische Musik (translated: “Cosmic Music”) that was written as the genre experienced a resurgence during the 2000s and early 2010s. Lizée blends a vast medley of sounds and performance techniques into a constantly flowing and everchanging stream of music. She also evokes the period through “archaic” electronic instruments in the Omnichord and Stylophone, both of which have developed a cult following since their introduction. While potentially chaotic, the glitch-filled torrent is carefully controlled by Lizée with continuous development that sustains interest and approachability despite a spiky exterior. Relentless evolution is a common feature across the works — but it is also paired with a growing integration of text and multimedia, especially in the later pieces Black MIDI (2017) and ZonelyHearts (2022).
Mediating this evolution is The Golden Age of the Radiophonic Workshop [Fibre-Optic Flowers], a short, virtuosic ode to the eponymous BBC studio of the ‘50s and ‘60s, and to Delia Derbyshire, the creator of the electronic Doctor Who theme. Here, the tactility of sound is a key component: Kronos and Lizée explore the different frictions of analog sounds — electronic and acoustic — using inventive pairings and combinations that evoke a blended hyperreality, as the physical and imagined become indistinguishable.
In concert, Black MIDI was conceived as a multimedia work that involved a docu-style film in combination with the Kronos Quartet and Toronto Symphony, who commissioned the work. The piece utilizes and comments on the microgenre Black MIDI. Popularized in the 2010s, Black MIDI is usually made from dense, extremely fast programmable electronic sounds — hence the name, as the screen is covered in ‘ink’ from the deluge of notes.
Unfortunately, in an audio-only format, the loss of the film’s visuals does have a significant impact; some extended speaking portions dampen the track’s momentum. Despite this, the music still shows itself strongly, particularly from the midpoint when Lizée uses dialogue on the famed fast tempo of Black MIDI music as the substrate for an intricate groove before later weaving the speech, spliced and edited, back into the texture.
The title track, and most recent collaboration, is likewise a multimedia composition, this time in reference to The Twilight Zone. Rather than using direct samples, Lizée sought to create a work that recalled the tone and important concerns of the show: “mind control, censorship, surveillance, brainwashing, and revisionist history… [and most strongly] freedom of expression and freedom to take artistic risks,” according to the program notes.
These themes come through clearly with the integration of speech, acting in equal parts as sonic and textual material. Thankfully, ZonelyHearts is not as hampered by the album format as the previous work, owing to the more contiguous integration of the text. The pacing here is also more patient, which provides a wonderful contrast for the album’s ending, balancing out the track list and featuring phenomenal vocal and instrumental performances.
Perhaps the bravest aspect of this album for Kronos is how relatively little they are featured — and with that, the space they give for each piece to come to life as a true collaboration. Their playing throughout the record is visceral, but also tightly controlled; they are always playing towards the benefit of the piece, even when that means letting the electronics and other aspects take the spotlight at times. In the end, the album is deeply engaging, as Lizée and Kronos Quartet curate a history and lineage through deep collaboration and a keen ear for electronic music’s past and future.
I CARE IF YOU LISTEN is an editorially-independent program of the American Composers Forum, and is made possible thanks to generous donor and institutional support. You can support the work of ICIYL with a tax-deductible gift to ACF. For more on ACF, visit composersforum.org.
