Release date: 15 November 2024
ELISION present their new album scalar on Huddersfield Contemporary Records. Exhibiting their trademark virtuosity and sense of musical exploration, these seven newly commissioned works explore openness, improvisation and instrumental extremes. scalar captures this seasoned ensemble at their most musically nuanced, bursting with energy but balancing this explosivity with compelling moments of reflection. As ELISION nears its 40th anniversary, scalar is a testament to the ensemble’s ability to tackle the most daunting of musical feats, pushed on by collaborators old and new.
Golnaz Sharaiatzdeh's Machine Euphoria opens the record with an ecstatic fanfare as oboist Peter Veale relentlessly navigates a variety of multiphonics and flutterings. scalar by Einar Einarsson, as well as Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh's 3,6. take a graphical approach to accessing the ‘ELISION sound’, leading to two distinct but highly visceral and striking duos. Cat Hope’s The Aesthetic of Disappearance and Charlie Sdraulig’s Ground both explore more contained and interior musical spaces, the former featuring busier material framed by characteristic slow drones, whilst the latter is a slow, unfolding interplay centered around the communication of minute musical details between the two performers. Mary Bellamy’s Enveloped fuses the sonic edges of cello and recorder into a single, more complex whole. Meanwhile, long-time ELISION collaborator Richard Barrett’s after weaves together delicate and detailed instrumental gestures with beds of electronic texture, revealing yet more depth to the possible musical worlds that ELISION can conjure from the interplay between score, composer, and ensemble.
As Evan Johnson writes on ELISION: “There are still things that cannot be done. But there is nothing a composer can imagine that they won't find a way towards… Collectively, these musicians are among the bravest, and the foolhardiest, in the world.” scalar speaks to the myriad musical possibilities ELISION explore and their determination to confront the existing limits of contemporary music.
ELISION Ensemble
RECORDING CREDITS
ELISION artistic director / project producer: Daryl Buckley
Track 1 recorded by Stephan Schmidt at MediaPark 7, Köln on 4 March 2021
Track 2 recorded by Aaron Dobos at Sing Sing Recording Studios, Melbourne on 21 April 2023
Tracks 3, 4, 6 and 7 are live performances recorded by Alistair McLean at Melbourne Recital Centre on 13 May 2022, 25 August 2022, 13 May 2022 and 9 September 2023 respectively
Track 5 is a live performance recorded by Alistair McLean at Classic Cinemas Elsternwick on 13 May 2021
Additional engineering on track 2 by Alistair McLean
Additional engineering on track 3 by Charlie Sdraulig
Additional engineering on track 6 by Richard Barrett
Mastered by Alex Stinson at ABC Southbank Studios, Melbourne on 23 April 2024
Richard Barrett's after was commissioned by Freya Schack-Arnott, and assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its principal arts investment and advisory body
Ali other works were written for/ commissioned by ELISION Ensemble
Album artwork: from the scores for scalar by Einar Torfi Einarsson and 3,6. by Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh
Photos by Laura Manariti and Lauren Murphy
Design: Mike Spikin
Project management: Alex Harker and Sam Gillies, CeReNeM for Huddersfield Contemporary Records (HCR) in collaboration with NMC Recordings
Catalogue no: HCR35