Count to Five

Album review

Despite critical praise from various sources, this release by the Recap percussion quartet, with additional players from the TRANSIT New Music ensemble, has garnered little attention. That's a shame, for the compositions performed, all by women, offer a glimpse into the richness of contemporary percussion music. Publicity for the album has focused on the all-minority makeup of the Recap group, high school friends in New Jersey who are alumni of the Mantra Percussion program. It's true that the percussion world has admitted few women or minorities, but the music can stand on its own, and it receives clean, precise performances here. The Count to Five title actually could refer to a pair of pieces on the album, the title track by Angélica Negrón, which uses children's voices and various everyday objects, and Ellen Reid's Fear/Release, which is built on a five-note phrase. One thing that keeps the album interesting is the variety of percussion employed: melodic, non-pitched, and found. The references are varied as well, from the sound of omnipresent New York construction in Allison Loggins-Hull's Hammers, to Armenian history in Mary Kouyoumdjian's Children of Conflict, to traditional hymnody in Caroline Shaw's "Will There Be Any Stars in My Crown?," where the composer herself sings the hymn against a rhythmically shifting percussion background. The centerpiece is the 20-minute Hedera of Lesley Flanigan, where the percussion provides a wash of sound in front of which vocal and other percussion events occur. Anyone might profitably listen to this album as a sampling of the kinds of new percussion music that are out there.
© James Manheim /TiVo