john luther adams
/ recordings
recordings
Year
    
Title
The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies
2006





“…a distinctive creative voice…he has built a body of work that bespeaks vast space, purity, and abstraction of experience, rigorous process, and an unobtrusive mysticism. All these are on display in the current work…austere, intense, natural in both the sense of the sounds’ relentless flow and their impersonality..quite magical. ” – Robert Carl, Fanfare

“…Adams uses a small palette of percussion and computer-generated sound to make his musical points – except they’re not as much points as they are landscapes in motion […]. Often, his music threatens to implode into a cold white void, only to be resurrected with glowing explosiveness […]. In "Mathematics" no one can accuse Adams of following anything but his own beat, a beat filtered through a patently minimalist prism.” – Edward Ortiz, Sacramento Bee

“…somewhat reminiscnet of the best of Xenakis […] full of glacial silence, electronic “auras,” and the sonic equivalent of majestic landscapes as well as percussive drum bursts… In its finest moments, it is hugely evocative.” – buffalo.com

"…a soliloquy of sorts – one musician with sticks beating out a private dialogue on a range of objects. What quickly becomes evident is that the aggression inherent in this scenario actually avoids stoic posturing and instead projects an unexpected intimacy…. Soloist Steven Schick … offers a compelling depth of perspective at each turn in texture and coloration.” – Molly Sheridan, Time Out

His music perfectly echoes the landscape he loves: impersonal, relentless, larger than human scale, yet gorgeous, a quiet chaos of colors, suffused with light. It’s not a climate everyone could live in. But for those who want to bathe their ears in an aural aurora borealis while staying warm inside, it’s a spiritual odyssey well worth taking. - Kyle Gann
john luther adams
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