into notes on a staff that a violin player might be able to make sense of, there was far more to figure out than he had initially considered.
“The transcription process wasn’t too crazy, because it is pretty straightforward stuff,” he said, explaining that knowing the Alarm Will Sound percussion section, he could compose with their strengths in mind. “What I found really exciting was the idea of how do I not only treat the delay effect, which was part of these pieces, but how do I orchestrate these sounds? I found that both a challenge and something that was really rewarding. I came up with interesting sounds. What is that tapping sound that sounds distant, how do I make that? Well, if I tap inside of the metal plate inside of the piano with the pedal down—things like that.”
Burhans was a longtime Aphex Twin fan, dating back to his college days, and had in fact christened his violin Milkman after the song of that name on the 1996 Aphex Twin
Richard D. James Album
. He had transcribed as experiments in the past, trying his hand at adapting for violin solos by jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, but these two Aphex Twin pieces, “Blue Calx” and “Cliffs,” were his first such professional exertions.
There were numerous decisions to be made, like having the brass perform offstage to get the sense of echoing distance, and to emphasize conducting the last two bars of the track to recognize the pause after the final fade as part of the intended listening experience.
None of which is to suggest an antipathy to electronic sounds on the parts of Alarm Will Sound or Burhans. The
Acoustica
album incudes a remix of Burhans’ “Cliffs” track by Dennis DeSantis, who later worked at the digital music instrument developers Native Instruments and Ableton. Burhans, on his 2013 solo album
Evensong
, made use, for example, of looping devices, real-time layering, as pioneered by Robert Fripp, that allow an individual to perform as an ensemble-by-accrual.
One notable thing about the Alarm Will Sound approach to the works is that the ensemble alone perform them. Burhans likened this to the Philip Glass model for ownership, in which from early on, Glass had it arranged that if performing arts organizations wanted his music performed, they would need to hire his band.
## The Cello’s Body Cavity
Alarm Will Sound’s recorded version of “Blue Calx” could easily be mistaken for the original. Perhaps not on a home stereo, or through a pair of headphones, but certainly if heard in a café. Certainly, in other words, if one were not concentrating on it. If the setting in which the Alarm Will Sound “Blue Calx” is itself ambient, then the specifics between the two versions begin to fade away. The differences between the two versions tell an interesting story about the nature of diametrically opposed performance techniques, but the similarities also are worth paying attention to.
At times the Alarm Will Sound version can seem even more situated in the background than the Aphex Twin original. In part this is because on
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
, “Blue Calx” stands out. The mere fact of “Blue Calx” being the one track with a title in the album art draws the imagination’s attention to its centrality. The melodic component of “Blue Calx” is a gently swaying motif that is distinct from just about anything else that happens on any other of the record’s tracks. It distinguishes itself by being a true, hummable, recognizable, even singable melody.
The core of the original “Blue Calx” is its melodic line, which sounds like a very loose appropriation of “Auld Lang Syne”—longer, more attenuated, notes removed and their memory whitewashed, an occasional note altered to trick the mind. There is a Celtic flavor. If the
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
album can be said to have a single, a “hit,” this is it: the sole song with a title. It is how the second side of the CD version of the album opens,
“The transcription process wasn’t too crazy, because it is pretty straightforward stuff,” he said, explaining that knowing the Alarm Will Sound percussion section, he could compose with their strengths in mind. “What I found really exciting was the idea of how do I not only treat the delay effect, which was part of these pieces, but how do I orchestrate these sounds? I found that both a challenge and something that was really rewarding. I came up with interesting sounds. What is that tapping sound that sounds distant, how do I make that? Well, if I tap inside of the metal plate inside of the piano with the pedal down—things like that.”
Burhans was a longtime Aphex Twin fan, dating back to his college days, and had in fact christened his violin Milkman after the song of that name on the 1996 Aphex Twin
Richard D. James Album
. He had transcribed as experiments in the past, trying his hand at adapting for violin solos by jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, but these two Aphex Twin pieces, “Blue Calx” and “Cliffs,” were his first such professional exertions.
There were numerous decisions to be made, like having the brass perform offstage to get the sense of echoing distance, and to emphasize conducting the last two bars of the track to recognize the pause after the final fade as part of the intended listening experience.
None of which is to suggest an antipathy to electronic sounds on the parts of Alarm Will Sound or Burhans. The
Acoustica
album incudes a remix of Burhans’ “Cliffs” track by Dennis DeSantis, who later worked at the digital music instrument developers Native Instruments and Ableton. Burhans, on his 2013 solo album
Evensong
, made use, for example, of looping devices, real-time layering, as pioneered by Robert Fripp, that allow an individual to perform as an ensemble-by-accrual.
One notable thing about the Alarm Will Sound approach to the works is that the ensemble alone perform them. Burhans likened this to the Philip Glass model for ownership, in which from early on, Glass had it arranged that if performing arts organizations wanted his music performed, they would need to hire his band.
## The Cello’s Body Cavity
Alarm Will Sound’s recorded version of “Blue Calx” could easily be mistaken for the original. Perhaps not on a home stereo, or through a pair of headphones, but certainly if heard in a café. Certainly, in other words, if one were not concentrating on it. If the setting in which the Alarm Will Sound “Blue Calx” is itself ambient, then the specifics between the two versions begin to fade away. The differences between the two versions tell an interesting story about the nature of diametrically opposed performance techniques, but the similarities also are worth paying attention to.
At times the Alarm Will Sound version can seem even more situated in the background than the Aphex Twin original. In part this is because on
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
, “Blue Calx” stands out. The mere fact of “Blue Calx” being the one track with a title in the album art draws the imagination’s attention to its centrality. The melodic component of “Blue Calx” is a gently swaying motif that is distinct from just about anything else that happens on any other of the record’s tracks. It distinguishes itself by being a true, hummable, recognizable, even singable melody.
The core of the original “Blue Calx” is its melodic line, which sounds like a very loose appropriation of “Auld Lang Syne”—longer, more attenuated, notes removed and their memory whitewashed, an occasional note altered to trick the mind. There is a Celtic flavor. If the
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
album can be said to have a single, a “hit,” this is it: the sole song with a title. It is how the second side of the CD version of the album opens,
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