Awake

The standard knock on the New Amsterdam crew is that their music tends to be overly pretty and easy-sounding. And though it's true the young composers on the label (who mostly hail from New York) hardly ever ask you to keep track of hexachords or meticulously-varied cycles of dissonance arranged for their own sake, that doesn't mean they're afraid to grind from time to time.

Awake, the second album from NOW Ensemble — something of a NewAm house band that employs clarinet, bass, guitar, piano and flute — offers useful pushback to the reductive conventional wisdom regarding their scene. To begin with, the ensemble recorded this collection of pieces in a church, allowing for a grandness of ambience to permeate each work. To say nothing of the music contributed by the group's composing members. Note the holy disquiet announced by a piercing flute that Sean Friar stretches over grandly sustained piano-poundings during his "Velvet Hammer." (And be sure to hang around for the piece's kinetic, whirling final seconds.) Anyone want to call that soft?

Or take "Magic with Everyday Objects" from Missy Mazzoli of eMusic Selects alums Victoire — a song that repurposes some thematic material from the overture to Mazzoli's… read more »