By DP119350
22-May-2011

Kudos to Friedman  

The name Jefferson Friedman was unknown to me until fairly recently, but on the basis of this recording, it deserves real recognition. There are very few discs of contemporary music that I would willingly pull out to listen to repeatedly, but this is one of them.

Friedman's quartet writing is fluent, idiomatic, propulsive, driven, lyrical and tonally centered. These are pieces which feature abundant imagination, contrast and technique. If Bela Bartok were living in Downtown New York now, one would not be surprised to hear something like this from him. The writing has immediate, visceral appeal.

I'm not entirely sure why the Matmos "remixes" are included on this disc--they are stylistically and sonically different from the quartets, and in an ideal world would have preferred another string quartet. Nevertheless, they are interesting and give another glimpse into Friedman's compositional process. Highly Recommended!
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