VIDEO RECORDINGS
visit our Youtube page for full video playlists and content
RELEASED RECORDINGS
Star Maker Fragments - TAK editions, 2021
Taylor Brook’s “Star Maker Fragments” sets excerpts of Olaf Stapledon’s groundbreaking 1937 novel “Star Maker.” Most notable for the invention of the many-worlds model of the universe, the novel focuses on a human narrator that is transported out of their body to become a disembodied viewpoint that travels through space and time. Brook evocatively renders Stapledon’s descriptions of imaginary societies with his sweeping and transcendentally detailed microtonal lines. Implicitly critiquing the rise of global authoritarianism in both music and text, Brook relishes in Stapledon’s empathetic and thoughtfully pacifistic lens.
1. STAR MAKER FRAGMENTS
music is continuous without breaks in section
IV - THE TASTE OF GOD (20:32)
V - STARS (26:02)
VI - MUSICAL UNIVERSES (31:03)
VII - BACK TO EARTH (40:32)
I - INTRODUCTION (0:00)
II - PEOPLE OF THE OTHER WORLD (6:13)
III - OTHER WORLD MEDIA (15:16)
2. STAR MAKER POSTLUDE
Oor - TAK editions, 2019
This album is like a bouquet of the most beautiful and strange flowers that have sprouted in our music-making garden over the first five years of the ensemble's existence. Or, maybe they're fruits and vegetables because they have nurtured us, been an important part of our growth and development.
The album is called Oor (naked) because these works, to us, share a sense of raw openness, unvarnished emotion and urgency.
As our third album, Oor launches TAK editions, into being. With works by Tyshawn Sorey, Erin Gee, Natacha Diels, David Bird, Ann Cleare, and Ashkan Behzadi, this visceral collection of works, primarily written for the ensemble, highlights fierce virtuosity, uncanny blends, and otherworldly timbral landscapes.
•
Mouthpiece 28, Erin Gee
2. Az Hoosh mi.., Ashkan Behzadi
3. Series Imposture, David Bird
4. Unable to Create an Offscreen World (c), Ann Cleare
5. Ornations, Tyshawn Sorey
6. The Colors Don’t Match, Natacha Diels
Sanctuary - Denovali, 2018
Sanctuary is a ritualistic masterwork of composer Mario Diaz de Leon’s, combining acoustic and electronic elements with visionary intensity. For the third full-length document of his classical works, Sanctuary is Diaz de Leon’s most unified offering to date, distilling the modernistic hellfire of his previous releases to a crystalline essence. Sanctuary is an album-length piece created in collaboration with TAK. The album is a hypnotic journey through realms of angelic and demonic experience.
•
1. Blades of Light
2. Balance
3. Heart Cave
4. Seraph Synapse
5. Sanctuary
6. Tongues of Fire
Ecstatic Music: TAK plays Brook - New Focus, 2016
Ecstatic Music presents four recent works by composer Taylor Brook, interpreted by TAK Ensemble, a “stellar” quintet (flute, clarinet, violin, percussion, and voice) featuring some of New York’s most adventurous new music performers. The album is the product of years of collaboration between Brook and TAK, and captures the range of Brook’s compositional voice, as well as TAK’s dedication to bold, highly communicative new music.
•
Ecstatic Music for violin and percussion
2. Idolum for flute, violin, and two guitar machines
3. Five Weather Reports for soprano, ensemble, and electronics
4. Amalgam for flute, clarinet, violin, percussion, and soprano
Please find our EPK here.
• • •
TAK’s operations occur on Lenape lands—Lenapehoking; we acknowledge the Lenape as the original people of this land and their continuing relationship with their territory.