Flotation Device joins Philip Glass to celebrate both his 88th birthday and the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris with a short piece written for its fully-restored grand organ. We use it as a springboard to explore two younger generations of European minimalists, including Anna von Hausswolff performing on a pipe organ tuned to Renaissance-era quarter-comma meantone temperament, and Bernhard Lang writing for an even more esoteric 1920s-era sixth-tone harmonium commissioned by microtonal music pioneer Alois Hába, whose sole remaining functional copy was just returned to active service. We celebrate Bill Laswell’s 70th birthday with a look at the more exploratory side of his career as a producer and electric bassist, and sample free improv from New York, intermedia from Florida, and three new albums of cross-cultural music by composers born in China, Japan and Iran. We close the proceedings with multihued electroacoustic works by Tristan Murail and Ewa Trębacz.
