New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Los Angeles-based musical collective Wild Up's Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine, their electrifying take on Eastman's "marvel of open-form minimalism" (Pitchfork) out now on New Amsterdam Records, has been called "singularly jubilant" in a review by
Thomas Huizenga at NPR Music. It continues: "Wild Up's new rendition of Femenine takes a page from Eastman's personal playbook: It's exuberant, a bit in your face, sometimes capricious, and always surprising.
"The most remarkable thing about Julius' music is its ability to send musicians closer to themselves, to force agency on them, and pull their insides out," Wild Up leader
Christopher Rountree says. "His pieces inspire creativity, in a totally singular way." Read the feature, which details the new recording as well as Eastman's life and work, over at NPR Music.
Underheralded in his time, Julius Eastman - a young, gay,
Black composer who made his presence felt in academia, discos, Europe, Carnegie Hall, and the downtown experimental music scene before dying in 1990 at age 49 - is just recently being celebrated for his visionary and boundary-defying approach to composition.
Wild Up is a modern music collective - a group of Los Angeles-based musicians committed to creating visceral, thought-provoking happenings. They tell stories and make projects that live somewhere between new music and theater and performance art and pop. The group believes that music is a catalyst for shared experiences, and that the concert venue is a place for challenging, exciting, and igniting the community around us. Earlier this year, Wild Up produced its second annual
Darkness Sounding festival, a series of musical happenings set against the darkest days of the year. Spanning a month, with over thirty distinct performances around Los Angeles (and virtually from beyond), the New York Times called
Darkness Sounding "sincere, outdoorsy [and] trippy."
Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine
Prime
Unison
Create New Pattern
Hold And Return
All Changing
Increase
Eb
Be Thou My Vision / Mao Melodies
Can Melt
Pianist Will Interrupt Must Return.
