Discreet Music by ContaQt
On the 40th anniversary of the release of Brian Eno’s electronic ambient masterpiece Discreet Music, Toronto’s classical Contact ensemble, led by artistic director and percussionist Jerry Pergolesi, weighs in with a modern arrangement that harks back to the adventurous experimentalism of the original.
In Contact’s version, acoustic and electric instruments (cello, violin, soprano saxophone, guitar, double bass, vibraphone, piano, flute and gongs) take the place of Eno’s EMS synthesizer, channeling the underlying melodies of the piece until the ensemble itself becomes a kind of “looping apparatus,” as Pergolesi describes it. “My hope is that this recording pays homage to an influential piece of music and fulfills its own purpose as, in Eno’s words, ‘not something intrinsic to certain arrangements of things – to [a] certain way of organizing sounds – but actually a process of apprehending that we, as listeners, could choose to conduct. Music is something your mind does.’”
Tracklist
| 1. | Discreet Music, part I | 9:44 |
| 2. | Discreet Music, part II | 10:37 |
| 3. | Discreet Music, part III | 5:24 |
| 4. | Discreet Music, part IV | 7:08 |
| 5. | Discreet Music, part V | 7:29 |
| 6. | Discreet Music, part VI | 8:01 |
| 7. | Discreet Music, part VII | 11:37 |
Credits
License
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Praised by the Globe and Mail as “thought-provoking” and “highly entertaining”, and by the New York Times as “mesmerizing” Contact combines 21st Century new-classical and experimental music with the sensibilities of rock and jazz to form a hybrid chamber ensemble that defies genres.