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01. JAMES MCVINNIE - The Revd Mustard his Installation Prelude
02. JAMES MCVINNIE - Take Care
03. JAMES MCVINNIE - Follow Up
04. JAMES MCVINNIE - Slow Twitchy Organs
05. JAMES MCVINNIE - O Sapientia
06. JAMES MCVINNIE - O Adonai
07. JAMES MCVINNIE - O Radix Jesse
08. JAMES MCVINNIE - O Clavis David
09. JAMES MCVINNIE - O Oriens
10. JAMES MCVINNIE - O Rex Gentium
11. JAMES MCVINNIE - O Emmanuel
12. JAMES MCVINNIE - Fast Cycles
13. JAMES MCVINNIE - Beaming Music
ARTIST
TITLE
Cycles
FORMAT
CD

LABEL
CATALOG #
HVALUR 019CD HVALUR 019CD
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
8/20/2013

Cycles introduces a new artist to the intimate roster that makes up the avant-garde label Bedroom Community: James McVinnie. The music on Cycles comprises 13 organ pieces by label-mate and composer Nico Muhly. Performing the pieces in addition to McVinnie are Nadia Sirota, Chris Thompson, and Simon Wall. What makes McVinnie such an ideal interpreter of Muhly's music is that he and Muhly share not just an understanding of the capabilities of the pipe organ as a musical instrument, but also an equally deep understanding of, and even affection for, its limitations. McVinnie speaks eloquently on behalf of his instrument's potential. "The organ is like a grand symphony orchestra controlled by one person manning a series of keyboards and pedals, stops and buttons. On the one hand, an organ can imitate orchestral instruments -- the ardent string section of an orchestra, a lyrical clarinet, a French horn, timpani -- and on the other, it has its own indigenous magisterial voice. Organs are built to speak into specific acoustic spaces. When you play, it's as if you're playing the whole building you're in, which often can be electrifying." And the organ as an instrument is tied to centuries of liturgical practice, capable of supporting or imitating a church choir with a solemnity few others could hope to summon. McVinnie is quick to point out, however, that the organ is also "the ultimate and original synthesizer" -- and it is nothing if not a mechanical, wind-powered synthesizer, with all of the uncanny falseness that that word implies. The symphonic, the acoustic, the sacred, the synthetic: there's a little of each in every one of the pieces on Cycles, and sometimes more than a little.