Michael Gordon: Campaign Songs

Album review

This little album, less than eight minutes long, was recorded during COVID-time isolation by the Kronos Quartet in the autumn of 2020, with the musicians sending in their individual parts for editing into wholes. It is mighty difficult to detect any trace of this process in the finished product, although perhaps an editor with a keen ear could do it. The album features eight "campaign songs," famous American tunes of general social significance, some of which have been used in actual campaigns over the years. Composer Michael Gordon embeds the tunes in textures that comment on them, creating what might be called critical elaborations. These range from confrontational (the opening Star-Spangled Banner may remind listeners of Jimi Hendrix's famous version of this melody at the Woodstock festival) to more reflective. The eight settings are restricted to single statements of the tune and are each about a minute long. Gordon and the Kronos Quartet intended the collection as a commentary on the 2020 election; whether this album put Joe Biden over the top might be debated, but it is heartening to see the Kronos Quartet continuing to be involved with fresh and innovative material after all these years. The album, it was felt, continued to have resonances after 2020 and was reissued, digitally and as a seven-inch single, in 2023; hence the side A and side B designation in the tracklist. An intriguing string quartet treatment of vernacular material.

© James Manheim /TiVo