Tearing the air open with a shveee…GUNNGGG, composer Nico Muhly launches his latest, I Drink the Air Before Me, like a bottle rocket on “Fire Down Below.” A whip of flute streaks skyward into bursts of piano and trombone.
The 29-year-old’s score began with a conceit: a coastal scene in which instruments represent human archetypes. One can hear the practical voice of a blue-collar bassoon, the nervous housewife of an obsessive flute and the observations of a kind of wrinkly-eyed town sage, played here by a viola. Written in collaboration with choreographer Stephen Petronio for a 2009 performance, both the music and the dance navigate tempestuous waters, often propelled forward by the unsettling movements of the piano, referred to by Muhly as an “unwelcome visitor.”
Muhly has a knack for music that’s simultaneously approachable and intricately crafted. The pattern in “Music Under Pressure 1 - Flute,” for example, has the wide appeal of a groove tune, and yet the beat continually steps with unexpected paces, a feature the performers no doubt found at least a little tricky to rehearse but thrilling to execute.
Flutist Alex Sopp, bassoonist Seth Baer, violist Nadia Sirota, trombonist Michael Clayville, double bassist Logan Coale and Muhly himself on the keys are in exceptional form here, transforming sound into vivid visual spectra. Even without the help of dancers, the album will captivate new-music diehards and newbies alike.
- Doyle Armbrust
published in Time Out Chicago on September 8th, 2010