DASHOW Soundings in Pure Duration Nos. 7,1 8,2 9,3 10. ….at other times, the distances • 1Enzo Filippetti (alt sax); 2Nicholas Isherwood (bbar); 3Manuel Zurria (bs fl); electronic sounds • RAVELLO 8063 (DVD Audio: 88:46 )

I very much enjoyed the previous release in this series, issued on Neuma and reviewed by myself in Fanfare 43:2. Here we have a DVD with five pieces, each given in two formats: tracks one through five are full 5.0 surround mixes, while tracks 6 through 10 are widened stereo masters. If you have the full bundle to listen on, it will vastly enhance the experience, but the widened stereo purely on its own merits offers a fabulously varied experience.

The imagination of James Dashow is vast, but he has the compositional nous to know how to create coherent soundscapes, both in the mixing of live performer with electronics and in pure electronic music. The music feels immersive, not just because of the recording techniques; it seems to speak deep inside one. The test of this is surely the 33-minute Soundings in Pure Duration No. 10, which not for one second of those minutes outstays its welcome. (Here we see a photo of the composer in a park as the static image; elsewhere, the soloists.) The expansion of soundspace allows Dashow to bring the music almost to a halt, with otherworldly, sustained, almost breathy background sounds haunting the more silvery electronica in the foreground.

So, this second volume comprises the remaining four pieces in the Soundings in Pure Duration series, plus the rerelease of the purely electronic ….at other times, the distances. Manuel Zurria is the superb bass flutist in Soundings in Pure Duration No. 9, his bass flute sonorous, virtuoso, and above all compelling in its interactions with the electronics around and with him. Of course, he is asked for many extended techniques, all carried off with aplomb. The interaction between soloist and electronics in these pieces is fascinating in how the electronics develop the pitch-classes of the flute. But it is No. 8, for bass-baritone and octaphonic sounds, that is surely the most especially involving, the soloist here being the experienced Nicholas Isherwood. Dashow takes his text from Art et Al. by Stephen Dobyns, a text of dark humor and Surrealism. Hearing Dashow’s expert play with defined textures in this piece is a joy,

Next comes the piece for alto sax and electronic sounds (No. 7), and again Dashow melds the electronic component around his soloist, this time the incredibly expressive Enzo Filippetti. He worked closely with the composer on technical components, such as the final alternation of two notes, traditionally thought to be impossible, here done brilliantly. In the full octaphonic version, Dashow creates fields of sound that he can pinpoint in space (one is reminded of Stockhausen’s ideal of pinpointing any sound exactly in a concert hall or opera house).

The final piece on the DVD is the earlier ….at other times, the distances. While the other pieces here were composed between 2014 and 2020, this takes us back to 1999, and it won the Magisterium Prize at the Bourges Electroacoustic Festival in 2000. Unlike the more sectionalized pieces above, this sounds more through-composed, and it is suffused with beauty. This performance only has been released before, on the Capstone DVD Radial Matrix, although apparently there have been some “added touches of signal enhancement.”

Although each piece is a world in its own right, Dashow has a consistency of compositional voice that marks him out as a truly special composer (period) and also a truly special composer of electronic music.

The accompanying documentation by Egidio Pozzi is beautifully detailed (if in tiny type in the booklet); the text is available at Ravello Records’ website. I should mention also in passing my appreciation of Dashow’s “planetarium opera” Archimedes (reviewed by myself in Fanfare 46:2). Colin Clarke