Gordon makes surprisingly rich and inventive use of what he describes as the “stark palette” of the simantra. He is blessed by the precision playing of Slagwerk Den Haag, who give virtuosic shape and substance to the clattering ebb and flow of the music in impeccable performances throughout.

Despite beginning with the slenderest of resources, in Timber Michael Gordon has created something with an incantatory power that is, in the truest sense of the word, mesmeric. The spacious recording, in the Dutch radio studios in Hilversum, is excellent, especially when heard on headphones.

Michael Gordon’s Timber is a fascinating work…The performance by the six master percussionists of Slagwerk Den Haag is stellar and the recorded sound is of audiophile quality.

To read the complete review, please visit Fanfare online.

2011 Deceptive Cadence Holiday Gift Guide

This wins our 2011 packaging prize. The disc of Michael Gordon’s mesmerizing 55-minute composition for six two-by-fours is nestled snugly in a handsome wooden box, which is decorated with images and lettering that could have been rendered by a vintage woodburning kit. Who would have thought that six guys banging on Home Depot items could sound so amazing? The shifting field of overtones produces its own kind of melody. © 2011 Deceptive Cadence/National Public Radio See complete list

The New York Times’s 25 Records of 2011

You can think of “Timber” as Steve Reich’s “Music for Pieces of Wood” gone mad, with gradual rhythmic evolution and good old-fashioned compositional manipulation rather than Reichian phasing as its engine. Mr. Gordon has six percussionists beat rapidly on a simantra (a wooden slab) to create a magnificently tactile texture in which densities and implied harmonies unfold, often surprisingly, over five movements lasting 55 minutes. See complete list

The music consists of rhythmic ostinatos that move from player to player and evolve into layers of polyrhythms of dazzling complexity, creating a shimmering, magical web of sound. In the nearly hour-long piece, the pulse changes only once, a tiny shift slower that starts toward the end of the third track; it’s remarkable in a piece of this length with such long stretches of music of unvarying pulse that Gordon is able to keep the listener constantly engaged. The key may lie in his skill in creating a continual ebb and flow of energy that feels inexorable but is not predictable.

So, these six percussionists are standing in a circle, and someone places in front of them six differently-sized wooden 2x4s. So what do they do? They play them, of course. This is not the set-up for one of those long, complicated jokes; it’s the reality of a composition by Bang on a Can co-founder Michael Gordon, whose career as a composer has, among other things, shown a favored interest in rhythm and “what happens when different rhythms are piled on top of each other.”

…one might imagine that the results are monochromatic. Timber is anything but.

…listeners are treated to an astonishing array of playing techniques, from a pitter patter of ricocheting attacks resembling rain fall to passages that accelerate and slow down to thunderous unison thwacks….the musical textures varied and buoys a fascinating narrative that remains instense…

Not only is this release musically pleasing, it’s easily one of the coolest packaging designs…