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MUSIC TO CHECK OUT: Phill Niblock, Terry Fox, David First, Ellen Fullman, Evan Ziporyn, Sacred Music of the Aztecs (Folkways), Robert Ashley, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, Morton Feldman, MORE TO COME!

"...Rewardingly visceral, a dual exploration of how instruments react to the touch and how musicians mesh with each other ... a stellar ensemble."
New York Times

"Transcendental and ecstatic."
Downtown Music Gallery

"Composer and visual artist Arnold Dreyblatt is one of post-Minimalist America's strongest voices. He studied under LaMonte Young, Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Lucier in the early 1970s, and even worked as Young's tape archivist from 1975-1976. This period was integral in his development as a composer and shows in his distinctly rhythmic, sonically mature and exact compositions. Fascinated by the concepts of just intonation, cellular rhythms and single string dynamics, his musical work (most famously with an ensemble called the Orchestra of Excited Stings) is almost tribal in its propulsive, percussive energy. Marked by precise repetitions and rich overtones, his work recalls the raw, loft-era work of Philip Glass ("Music in Fifths') or Terry Riley ("In C")". - Doug Russell

"While it's unlikely that Dreyblatt's album will spawn a revolution in electronica, his low-tech techno approach may inspire a new strain of minimalism within classical music, one that draws upon contemporary electronica for inspiration but remains acoustic in execution. When it all comes together, as in the syncopated, tribal Meantime, the groove is irresistible."—Ben Finane NY

"While I really like everything of Arnold's, especially the more "heroic" parts of Nodal Excitations and Propellors in Love, this is the record that really steps out as the first genuinely new sound in maybe 10 years. It's as if the Dirty Dozen Brass band got a hold of some of Arnold's records and decided to give it a go. I cannot overstate how unbelievably brilliant this record is. When played loud, I firmly stand by my declaration that it is one of the 4 or so best records ever made". - Jim O’Rourke

For those who caught the action, Arnold was the man. He was more rock than any of the other minimalists combined, and he was also the only one to really tap into that massive proto-minimal sound that Conrad had squelched out of his tin-contact mic violin in the early 60s. Indeed, in the early 70s, after being in school in Buffalo, where Conrad taught, Dreyblatt moved into Manhattan to work for LaMonte Young, where he witnessed first hand, and listened first-ear to those legendary recordings of the Theatre of Eternal Music. He got interested in long string sounds, and bought a bass that he wired with piano wire. By hitting the strings instead of bowing them, Dreyblatt was able to get those ringing overtones, but he also had added something new: pure rhythm...So what you have here is Dreyblatt's freshman record, a slice of minimal history that is as potent now, if not more, as it was then. It was a lighthouse that was aiming the wrong way when the tugboat came by, but now it's shining right in your face." -Drag City