The “blue” of this piece doesn’t just come through in the flatted notes in Elliott Sharp’s guitar playing or the minor-key refrain in the rough timbres of trombone and baritone sax. It’s also the color …

Chorus of the University of Utah and brass from the Utah Symphony conducted by Newell Weight
Here’s another curio from New World’s ongoing project to reissue the back catalogue of the sadly discontinued Composers Recordings Inc. …

James Kosnick, organ; David Walker and Rob Cross, percussion
Here’s one for the oddest-instrumentation-you’ll-hear-this-month category: a work for organ and two percussionists. And such a combination can create some really ferocious sounds, all of which find …

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop
At the center of this five-movement work is a spare, tense and perfectly named section: “Sense of Doubt.” The alternation of heavy descending figures and light, shimmering sounds captures …

David Gier, trombone; David Greenhoe, trumpet
The piece gives its name to a CD of “Chamber Trios with Trombone.” Stemper’s note on the performance reflects a political edge (it was written in the “bewildering span of …

Mark Hill, oboe
A joke, long circulated among woodwind players (how it ever made it back to me in the trombone section, I’ll never know):
What’s the difference between an oboe and a clarinet?
A clarinet burns longer.
But …

Latigo, a 2007 Grammy-nominated disc by Quartet San Francisco, features Latin percussion accompanying string quartet tangos and dances. Some of the tracks have odd ripples of “Oye Como Va”—congas and cowbells playing familiar patterns—but Cohen, …

Chris Becker creates extraordinarily vivid, almost cinematic, sonic landscapes from layering old field recordings with modern day electronics and contributions from a wide variety of improvising instrumentalists. On “Wake Up Dead Man,” Becker uses a …

Matthew Gold, Eduardo Leandro, Tom Kolor, Matthre Ward, percussion; Paul Hostetter, conductor
When confronted with an album titled Matrix, a compilation of chamber music by baby boomer composer Louis Karchin, one would expect to hear a …

It’s a truly ’60s flashback—to composer Soldier’s childhood specifically. Soldier seems to be pursuing some sort of intellectual mash up philosophy in many of the pieces included on this disc of chamber works—Baroque suites meet …