Stephan Micus, Panagia

The strains of early music are never far from earshot on Stephan Micus's latest album, Panagia (ECM B0018009-02). In fact ancient choral strains, plainchant, Orthodox chant, organum and middle-ages modality are inherent in what he is doing.

It's Maestro Micus in his 20th album for ECM, celebrating his 60th birthday, in a setting to music of six Byzantine Greek prayers to the Virgin Mary. He uses his vocals in multiple tracks to create choirs of archaic beauty, or singly to launch into song. He plays for this recording an exotic array of instruments, including the Bavarian zither, dilruba, chitrali sitar, sattar, 14-string guitar and nay.

There can be ensemble sounds or just single accompanying instruments.

Whatever the mix, it is stunning music, early-new music for today, composed today, performed today, but ultimately timeless.

Andrea Centazzo, The Heart of Wax

Andrea Centazzo the composer continues to unfold before my ears as I listen to his minimalist opus The Heart of Wax (Ictus 301), a 12-part dance suite for a large chamber ensemble, string quartet and soloists.

This is an infectiously rhythmic and melodically memorable set of contrapuntal movements, inflected at times by rock, jazz and world elements, following out of similar mallet-wind-string ensemble works by Reich, yet bearing palpably the recognizable imprint of Andrea Centazzo's own originality.

For minimalism to work, there must be inventive scoring. Nothing can be more dreary to my mind than a minimalism of uninspired and uninteresting motifs and/or one-dimensional instrumentation. Thankfully that is not the case with Centazzo's work in the style in general and in Heart of Wax especially.

There is much to occupy the actively listening ear on this one. It's a refreshing hybrid that operates on a high plane throughout. Give it a listen.