DASHOW Soundings in Pure Duration Nos. 2a,1 2b,1 3,2 4,3 5,4 6 • 3Nick Revel (va); 4Lucia Bova (hp); 2Arturo Tallini (gtr); 1Pre-recorded percussion; Computer sounds • NEUMA 450-204 (DVD audio: 71:43)

This is volume one of Soundings in Pure Duration and can be heard in 5.0 surround sound or in stereo. As a foremost composer of electronic music, James Dashow has at his hands an extraordinary palette, and it is good that the very present sound on this release enables a full immersion. Bruce Sayler’s excellent notes aptly describe the journey of the disc as “not unlike the unitary experience of a huge symphony, each part featuring a different, virtuoso soloist.”

The program begins with Sounding No. 4 (2012) for viola (the excellent Nick Revel) and octophonic electronic sounds. What is fascinating is how the electronica supports the viola soloist, sometimes in a halo-like fashion, sometimes in an underpinning one, while sometimes the two engage in fragmented, frenetic dialogue. The performance is audio-only; the DVD itself shows a photo of the soloist with performance details.

Dating from the very next year, Sounding No. 2b is for pre-recorded percussion and octophonic electronic sounds. Inevitably, the surround-sound gives the finer experience here, as there are so many percussion effects. It is a remarkable 12 minutes, wherein the music describes a large-scale descent. Listeners may find links to Stockhausen, although in Dashow’s case gestures can be more recognizably derived from musical events performable on traditional instruments. On both moment-by-moment and larger levels, this is one of the finest percussion and electronics pieces I have come across. The sheer compositional command is astonishing; one intuitively knows that Dashow is absolutely aware of the sounds he wants.

The sheer beauty of the harp in Sounding No. 5 is but one aspect of this piece. The manipulation of the sound enables the harp’s sounds to come, not from one sound source, but from multiple angles. This is one of the most sonically attractive pieces of core electronica (that is, serious composition as opposed to ambient sound) that I have come across. Lucia Bova is a superbly alive, present harpist.

Soundings No. 6 is for octophonic electronic sounds and therefore has the purest electronic element so far. As the most recent of the pieces here, it might perhaps signal a change of direction for this series. The subterranean opening sounds also seems to send a signal: It ushers in cavernous spaces. The lines likewise have their own positions in space, creating a sort of sound counterpoint in 3D, almost as if the listener is inside of, even part of, the interweaving lines. At one point the music seems to explode into dance, just at the point that the acoustic expands. There is a clear foreground/background perspective, used to fine effect in the closing seconds of the work.

The guitar is the featured instrument in Soundings No. 3, a virtuoso vehicle for Arturo Tallini. Heard in hexaphonic sound, there is a pronounced poetic dimension here as well. Tallini is a brilliant player, fresh and clean of delivery, occasionally even finding hidden dance-like elements to the music. Given Tallini’s pedigree, his command is unsurprising: He is Professor of Guitar at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, and leads the Master Courses in Contemporary Music Interpretation there.

Soundings No. 2a is for pre-recorded percussion and hexaphonic electronic sounds, and has a sort of meditative slant to it. A Wergo compact disc of Dashow made Mike Silverton’s Want List in 1990, a disc including two works that also feature solo instruments and electronic sounds. Dashow has an individual voice that he chosen to channel through the medium of electronic sounds, often mixed with a human performer; the results are mesmerizing. Colin Clarke