Stock: 
Format: 
Release Date: 25-02-2000
Label: Celestial Harmonies
Catalog Number: 15030-2
Barcode: 13711503029
Musical Style: World
Track Listing:
| Disc 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marimba Dance No 1 [03:29] | 8 | Omphalo Centric Lecture [08:33] |
| 2 | Scholars [01:32] | 9 | John the Baptist in the Cistern/Men’s Dance with Herod [03:53] |
| 3 | Salome’s Entrance [04:34] | 10 | Air and Other Invisible Forces [05:07] |
| 4 | Free_Radicals (Parts 4 and 5) [06:24] | 11 | Falling/A Clear Midnight [06:46] |
| 5 | Mangrove Hocket [03:54] | 12 | Wave [06:25] |
| 6 | Under Desert Stars [04:19] | 13 | Heading South [06:47] |
| 7 | Moving Pictures [06:19] | 14 | Marimba Dance No 3 [03:27] |
Description:
Michael Askill says his favorite compositions are the ones that have a narrative quality. Rhytmn in the Abstract uses his music to tell the story of his varied career. This set of recordings covers more than a decade and includes musicians as diverse as composer/synthesist Nigel Westlake, Japanese koto player Satsuki Odamura and the Australian Aboriginal musician David Hudson. Listeners who know of Askill's many recordings for Celestial Harmonies and Black Sun may recognize some of these pieces, but this compilation also includes some revised versions of previously released works and offers a first glimpse at Askill's new score for Graeme Murphy's Sydney Dance Company, a work that uses digital samples from Celestial Harmonies' impressive roster of traditional world music recordings. Askill's music draws as heavily on world music traditions as it does on Western jazz, rock and classical music. And being a percussionist, he says, definitely colors the types of music he creates. I feel most comfortable composing - in the traditional sense, on manuscript - with percussion instruments.' As this compilation shows, though, there is little traditional in Askill's compositions. 'that's why I work with the people I do,' he explains. 'They bring me the improvising traditions that they are a part of - Riley Lee's Japanese flute, or Turkish instruments - and improvise within my context.' To the listeners who have enjoyed Askill's work with the group Synergy Percussion, or his evocative scores for the Sydney Dance Company, such distinctions won't matter much. It is enough to marvel at Askill's eclectic blend of Asian and Western musics (a natural one for an Australian composer) and of electric and acoustic instruments (natural for a composer of the late 20th century).'
Biography:
Producer and composer Michael Askill is regarded by many as Australia's finest percussionist. He is a founding member and the Artistic Director of Australia's premier contemporary ensemble Synergy, a composer, producer, the Head of the Percussion Department at the Canberra School of Music and finds time for collaborations and a solo career. By his teenage years, Omar Faruk Tekbilek was one of Turkey’s most sought after session musicians. A virtuoso performer on the Near Eastern cane flute (ney) and the Turkish lute, (baglama) Tekbilek was in demand in both jazz and traditional Turkish/Arab music circles. Along the way, he has mastered several kinds of reed instruments, a variety of strings (bowed and plucked), synthesizer, hand drums and even the accordion. In 1976, he settled in upstate New York. Since then, his music has appeared regularly on concert stages, recordings and films in the United States, Europe and Australia. In addition to a thriving solo career, he has played with a wide range of other musicians, from the late Don Cherry to pianist Michael Harrison’s Mandala Jones, a band that draws on the poetry of the great 13th century Sufi poet Rumi.
«Go back to Celestial Harmonies
