Two weeks ago, I reviewed the new album from the Kronos Quartet, and there wasn’t a second thought about classifying the record as classical music. After all, not only was this the Kronos Quartet, one of the most important forces of classical music today, but it was also music written for string quartet, perhaps the most obviously (and obstinately) classical of any music configuration still utilized in the twenty-first century. But what defines a work of contemporary classical music? When we get away from the classical instrumentation and classical notation, what is left to identify the genre?
Nowadays contemporary classical tends to be thought of in only one capacity: that of quiet, repetitive, introspective minimalism. Names like Max Richter, Slow Six, and Goldmund are often mentioned in these discussions. And I don’t want to insult these artists or their style, because I’m absolutely a fan. But this is only one realm of a thriving genre, one that I have taken to calling “post-classical.” Post-classical music is lovely, but saying it comprises the entirety of contemporary classical is like saying that all post-rock artists must sound like Explosions in the Sky, ignoring the contributions of older artists like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Tortoise, or newer groups like Sunwrae.
Post-classical artists like the aforementioned often draw their influences quite explicitly from Steve Reich and Phillip Glass, especially in terms of the latter’s general style of composition. But there is another strand of classical artists out there who draw from differently composers, such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, and who oftentimes work as much within the realm of indie rock and electronica as they do classical music. One of the leading voices in this category of contemporary classical is Nico Muhly, whose excellent Mothertongue garnered an excellent review last year. In equal company with Muhly is Tyondai Braxton, whose Central Market has managed to blow the lid off of what we might consider “classical” music.
Most probably know Braxton better as the guitarist and vocalist for Battles, but the man has an even more intriguing history. The son of American avant-garde jazzist Anthony Braxton, Tyondai went on to study at the Hartt School of Music and quickly developed a loop-based method of composition, releasing his first solo album, The Grow Gauge, in 2002. Then, of course, he joined Battles and everything blew up. Battles signed a record deal with Warp, they received prominent slots at music festivals around the globe, and they even got rare scores of 9 or higher from both The Silent Ballet and Pitchfork Media (a startling occurrence indeed!).
But, I was never really a fan of Battles, believe it or not. What everybody seemed to perceive as brilliant, I just saw as rather annoying. And when I first heard that Braxton was putting out a new solo record (which was before researching the details of the last paragraph), I wasn’t particularly excited. Still slightly intrigued, though, I went ahead and checked out Central Market after a few recommendations had come my way. My surprise when “Opening Bell” came through the speakers was extreme. Though I could still perceive some common elements with Mirrored, this seemed like the work of a vastly improved artist.
There’s a sense of playfulness at work here, which one might be able to pick up on pretty quickly, given the prominence of the kazoo. But just because it's playful doesn’t mean that the music is light or simple. Indeed, one of the greatest achievements of Central Market is Braxton’s ability to use so many different instruments, both analog and digital in nature, to compose so many different musical ideas, and then to weave them together within the structure of both the songs and the album as whole. “Opening Bell,” the appropriately-named first track, begins with a pulsing bass beat which keeps metronymic time in standard electronica fashion. But over this is layered a simple piano melody that cycles for a few bars before being joined by a human whistling an entirely different tune. Then the song continues to build -- adding one element, subtracting another -- and follows many different tunes around to their natural conclusion, often doing so concurrently with one another.
One can take a few different meanings from these interworkings. Some, such as the coexistence of the electronic and the organic, are fairly commonplace in artistic music these days and doesn’t really strike me as being so odd. But, it’s worth noting the extent to which the coexistence is explored. Usually, commentary on electronic/organic opposition focuses on quiet acoustic music, but also includes some electronic glitching. Here, we’re mixing an electronic pulse with a human whistle—that is, a purely digital sound with the height of analog instruments. This is a relatively newer spin on the old dichotomy. However, push this opposition just a bit further and the song begins to take on some really cool angles.
“Analog” implies all the ranges of grey and the colors of emotion; in other words, complete freedom of choice. “Digital” implies black or white, yes or no, 1 or 0, and cold, meticulous calculation; that is, the almost complete elimination of choice. These two domains are opposed in the choice of instrumentation, naturally. Although, here there is far more than simple opposition, aiming rather towards interplay and even blending. But the representation of the two domains goes even further, finding itself played out within the composition of the songs themselves.
This is perceivable in “Opening Bell,” but the compositional opposition really hits its full stride when we move towards the ultra-frenetic second and fourth tracks, “Uffe’s Woodshop” and “Platinum Rows.” The later, undoubtedly the best song on the album, is a sprawling ten-minute piece which sounds alternately like an acid trip of a Super Nintendo videogame soundtrack and a demented choir force-fed through digital processors. Elements bound off the walls here, jumping at us left and right, often before we even really have a chance to process them. Occasionally it feels as though Braxton might have picked their order or instrument with John Cage-style randomization. What is important here, though, is that Braxton is exercising the complete choice of musical expression methods available to one in the twenty-first century. It seems like there might be a stigma associated with saying that Braxton is utilizing expanded choice for the sake of expanded choice -- the statement accompanies the rather extraordinary thought that the same musical ideas can be expressed in thousands of different ways. This is what happens when Braxton repeats the same downwards motif three times in a row, each time using a different instrument (kazoo, what sounds to be a zither, and choir, respectively), and then combines the three to move back up the scale: the unity of concept permeates the seemingly-random choice of instrumentation.
And the unity of concept must be fulfilled. Through all the wacky instrumentation, through the frenetic style of “Platinum Rows” and the dark ambient of its follow-up, “Unfurling,” and through the more middle-way pieces such as “Opening Bell,” there is a sense of overall unity to the album. This is reflected in the way some of the tracks run into each other, but also through repetition of motifs throughout the album. There are certain note arpeggios with which one will become very familiar by the end of the album. Sometimes these are repeated with the same instrument, sometimes not. The reusing of these elements might strike one as a lack of creativity, but in such a context as this, where the artist is obviously overflowing with creativity, a different purpose comes to mind. It has the effect of linking the songs together, to make them seem like different interpretations of the same musical idea. In other words, the seemingly disparate tones of the songs serve the same purpose as the off-the-wall choice of instrumentation.
As I said, the unity of concept must be fulfilled. There is a sense that these songs are almost self-propelled, that the choice of whether to complete them is not even present. Braxton may express his complete freedom of choice to pick whatever style of music and instrumentation he wants, but the fact that all of these choices only come back to illuminate the same underlying theme makes it seem as though there isn’t much of a choice at all. This reminds of the common artists’ situation: create what they will, and how they will, but they must create. There is no choice in the matter. And thus, the analog and the digital come back to stare us in the face once again.
I asked earlier what it is that defines contemporary classical music. The question is rather difficult to answer. Besides formal musical education, and the acclaim of university musicologists, there is often precious little that can identify the genre as a whole. Instrumentation doesn’t matter anymore. Notation doesn’t matter anymore. Reproducibility by others doesn’t matter anymore. I am tempted to say that contemporary classical music is music that is designed to convey an idea, but then that sounds like a great insult to the legions of artistic genres out there which do the same thing, but which would probably never be classified as classical. Perhaps this is more an issue with the increasing permeability and imprecision of genres than anything endemic to classical music itself.
At the same time, I like to think that there is some particular trait which makes albums like Central Market identifiable as contemporary classical. Perhaps it’s a sense, or awareness, of tradition above all else. Certainly, much of contemporary classical is rooted in trying to throw off the traditions of the past, but it still recognizes them as traditions in conversation with the present. This is different from other types of artists, who likely see themselves as outside of the tradition of classical artists whatsoever, if they even stop to think about Beethoven, etc. Contemporary classical artists are well aware of their status as merely the latest musical composers in a long history that not only reaches back as far as humanity, but which also continues to inform the present day. Thus, when I listen to this record, I can hear touches of Reich and Stockhausen, but also Brahms, Mozart, Copland, and Berlioz, to name just a few; and in other traditions, I can hear Basinski, and Boards of Canada, and yes, even that damn Battles. I hear all these masters of the past and present, but I also hear one more person, and his name is Tyondai Braxton. Such complete choice in reference, but it ultimately all comes down to the guy with the name on the cover of the record.
-Tom Butcher