Philip Glass and Cecil Taylor take the spotlight in this episode of Flotation Device. We celebrate the 50th anniversary of a landmark Glass composition that took four hours to traverse at its June 1974 premiere, encapsulating it in 30 minutes of highlights drawn from three different performances by The Philip Glass Ensemble recorded over three decades. Cecil Taylor comes to us a new archival album that showcases his sextet as it sounded in 1980. We’ll compare his vigorous atonal piano style to classic Messiaen and brand-new Manoury, while contrasting it to the mellower sound world of the new Philip Glass Solo album. Meanwhile Roger Reynolds combines a chamber orchestra with live and computer-processed flutes, while Osmo Tapio Räihälä runs a violin and a Finnish kantele through effects pedals. A quartet of Polish avant-garde chanteuses, a trans-Atlantic trio with sax, bass and pedal steel, and the new Seattle band WASNT round out the playlist.
