1. **Steven Reich, “Explanations Come To An End Somewhere”**: one movement from one of Steven Reich’s recent works, the “You Are” variations. I think it’s some of the best stuff he’s ever written.
2. **Fiddlers Four, “Pickin’ the Devil’s Eye”**. Another Darol Anger project, and as usual, it’s very cool. This is basic old-time country fiddling, full of energy and fire.
3. **Seamus Egan, “To An Old Rose”**. Seamus Egan is a brilliant Irish musician; he’s one of the finest Irish flutists in the world, and he also plays tenor guitar, regular guitar, banjo, keyboards, lap steel, and who knows what else. This is a tenor guitar waltz, very mellow, very beautiful.
4. **Hamster Theatre, “La Sacre D’Merde”**. Strange but brilliant band. They’re a Rock-in-Opposition spinoff of Thinking Plague with very heavy early music influences. I also love their titles… “La Sacre D’Merde” is basically “The Rite of Shit”; the title of the album is “The Public Execution of Mr. Personality”.
5. **Rachel’s, “Old Road”**. “Rachel’s” is another of those post-rock ensembles that I’m so wild about. They’re a very classical one; the closest comparison would be to the Clogs, by Rachel’s is *better*. In fact, they’re by far the best of the PREs that I’ve found so far. There just aren’t words for this kind of music, it’s too good. And I discovered them entirely by accident! I was looking for something else, and just happened to notice this thing tagged “PRE”.
6. **Dirty Three, “Stellar”**. Yes, more post-rock. Dirty Three is wonderful.
7. **John Corigliano, “Elegy”, 2nd movement of the Clarinet Concerto .** Corigliano is one of the finest composers in the world today. As a clarinetist, I’m particularly enamoured of his clarinet concerto. This is played by Stanley Drucker. I used to think that Drucker wasn’t such a great clarinetist, based on his recordings of Mozart and Weber’s concertos. This recording completely changed my mind; Drucker is the very finest performer of modern compositions on the clarinet. It’s obvious that he’s just not as *interested* in the older stuff; the modern stuff is what he loves.
8. **The Andy Statman Klezmer Orchestra, “Galitzianer Chusud”**. There was also a piece from this group in last week’s FRT. I’m particularly fond of this one, because my father is a Galtizianer. (Galitzianers are Jews from the Galicia region of what was Russia when they lived there. My mother’s family are Litvak’s (Latvians). The Litvaks and the Galitzianers were traditionally rivals; the old joke among Litvaks is that if you’re not careful, your children will grow up to marry a Galitzianer.)
9. **Rachel’s, “And Keep Smiling”**. Two Rachel’s tracks in one FRT! Hurrah!
10. **Psychograss, “Stroll of the Mudbug”**. Psychograss is yet another Darol Anger project, also featuring my former banjo teacher, Tony Trischka, not to mention David Grier, Mike Marshall, and Todd Phillips. A group of musicians with more skill than this gang is damned hard to find, and they have a *great* chemistry as a group. It’s newgrass with a good bit of jazz.