eMusic Review 0
Derek Bermel has emerged as a distinctive voice on the American music scene — no mean feat, given that he is just as capable of being several different voices on the scene. Bermel is a classical composer, a clarinetist who's as comfortable with improvisation as notation, the leader of the funk-rock outfit Tonk and a pop keyboardist/singer who leads a band called Peace By Piece. Now in his early 40s, Bermel has found a way, especially in the course of the last decade, to weave together all the disparate threads of his musical life into something that does not sound forced or like a pastiche.
This collection of large-scale works features the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, or B-Mop, as it's universally called. But the orchestra has subtle touches that betray Bermel's wide-ranging tastes. On the atmospheric "Elixir," for example, an electric bass and a theremin lurk among the orchestra. They conspire to give this soundscape a kind of ghostly hue. "Dust Dances" and "Thracian Echoes" are exciting rhythmic evocations of two places where Bermel has studied traditional music — Ghana and Bulgaria, respectively. The former piece treats the orchestra like a massive gyil, the traditional xylophone of West Africa. "Thracian Echoes"… read more »
