The Music of Ann Millikan Featuring the California EAR Unit

SEQUENZA 21

This disc is my first encounter with Ann Millikan’s music, and I’m pretty impressed. She knows instruments, has a good command of harmony and structure, and a solid sense of style. Make that “styles”. There’s a little something here for everyone. Ms. Millikan’s eclectic music moves seamlessly (usually) between such diverse stylistic poles as late modernism, totalism, jazz, and expanded tonality. My favorite piece is Red Migration, a taut (seven and a half minutes packed with incident) exploration of the emotions involved with moving halfway across the country. The gestures and recurring motives are vivid and expressive, and as with everything else on the disc, expertly written for the instruments. Less successful, for me at least, is 221B Baker Street, which is, in the composer’s words, a “quirky jazz/rock detective story inspired by the brilliant Sherlock Holmes series portrayed by Jeremy Brett”. It’s built on a 5:4 groove but seemed less groovy than that. It may be that I’ve been listening to a lot of Stevie Wonder lately and his grooves are more satisfying. The California EAR Unit gives incredibly clean and committed performances and Innova’s sound is clear and detailed. Recommended.

by Steve Hicken

KATHODIK

Il linguaggio di Ann Millikan, è un personale crogiolo compositivo dove, si vengono ad incontrare, influenze etniche (Sud America, Africa), spunti jazz, tensioni avanguardiste che flirtano con un’elettronica meditabonda; silenzi e visione. Attitudine da camera mancante di una parete, colori idealmente sempre accesi, possiede la visione appunto. Quella peculiare capacità di evocare, di materializzare spazi dalla temporalità incerta (la notevole Red Migration che si muove chiaroscurale fra disorientamento e scarti di gioia improvvisa; l’incantevole incastro fra piano e violino). Una ricerca costante che la porta ad inglobare nel suo porsi, Morton Feldman e Milton Nascimento, Morton Subotnick e l’alba sonnacchiosa, etilica, post serata indiavolata di ballo popolare sotto il cielo stellato. Eseguite e composte da/per il California EAR Unit (ensemble di Los Angeles dedito alla performance e promozione di nuova musica contemporanea), gli otto segmenti espressivi proposti in questa occasione, coprono un lasso temporale che va dal 1999 al 2005, ognuno di questi, caratterizzato da inserti destabilizzanti che, con leggera semplicità; eludono abilmente il senso di noia riscontrabile in analoghe operazioni di genere. La stasi/tensione contemplativa su più livelli di The Woodcarver E The Blacksmith, l’inflessione da frontiera polverosa impressa dalle corde, quel sottile rimando al Jimmy Garrison Coltraniano, il jazz/rock pulsante finale, ispirato a Sherlock Holmes (!), la strumentazione elettronicamente alterata che si lascia andare ad una nuova, futura, ipotesi sghemba. Tira aria libera nella testa di Ann! Colorata, impetuosa e personale. Altra nuova, intrigante proposta da parte di casa Innova. Ottimo.

by Marco Carcasi

ALL MUSIC

The music of American composer Ann Millikan is genuinely eclectic. Her background includes traditional classical training, experience as a jazz performer, and a residency with the new music ensemble, the California EAR Unit, and the music on this album reflects all those influences, as well as rock and the folk traditions of Africa and Brazil. Her work is characterized by high energy and a quirky inventiveness that defies easy categorization. Most of the works recorded here, for ensembles from three to seven members, require the performers to use a number of instruments, including a variety of unconventional percussion such as metal bowls, thunder tube and water tam-tam. Her scoring is clean and transparent and her felicities of orchestration are among the most attractive elements in her work. Her pieces have descriptive titles and are all strongly evocative. Three Reflections, a sort of miniature violin concerto with an accompaniment of alto flute, bass clarinet, vibraphone, piano and cello, and the meditative The Woodcarver & the Blacksmith, for the same ensemble, are particularly effective. The California Ear Unit performs her music with conviction and musicality, and the sound quality is clear and present.

by Stephen Eddins