Over the past 45 years, Larry Polansky has been composing a series of fascinating mensuration canons (a formal concept dating back to the Renaissance) that run the sonic gamut from wildly boisterous to serenely introverted. This album collects thirteen of these canons (one of which is found here in three different realizations), with instrumentations including marimbas, gamelan, electric guitars, children’s voices, computer, choir, and chamber ensemble. Performances by and collaborations with such noted musicians as William Winant, Jody Diamond, Daniel Goode, the York Vocal Index, Ray Guillette, Nathan Davis, Nick Didkovsky, and others.

In these canons, each successively entering voice moves proportionally faster than the previous one (i.e., each successive voice is to some degree a temporal compression of the voice that precedes it, allowing all voices in any given canon to contain roughly the same amount of information yet all end simultaneously), causing each piece’s density and rhythmic complexity to increase from beginning to end.

“This West Coaster-turned-Dartmouth prof is the heir apparent to the Cowell/Nancarrow/Tenney genius experimentalist mantle.” (Kyle Gann, Village Voice)

“I like Larry Polansky’s work very much. He’s got a real point of view, which is one of the things that is hardest to come by.” (Ben Johnston, Perspectives of New Music)


REVIEWS:

“The music of Larry Polansky is as much fun to listen to as it is to think or get serious about…. the results are dazzling as each canon defines its individual properties and unique sound world…. The transformations are ubiquitous and compelling. For instance, a sepulchral gamelan quickens to become a euphony of oriental bells; the sound texture of seven speaking children thickens until we no longer hear voices but only a dense, pulsed, multi-layered timbre; separate, computer-generated sounds turn into a brilliant, bell-like tintinnabulation. Part of the seriousness of all this fun is that it has something, or rather many things, to say. Notably about time, for instance: time as a process that can exist simultaneously in multiple versions of itself, as several processes; time as multi-layered, each layer unfolding according to its own temporal logic. Or about perception: about how the familiar can be made strange, or the strange appear familiar, as the passage from simplicity to complexity becomes a process in which we reflexively participate. And implied here is a further, crucial suggestion: that these transformations have as much to do with the world as with ourselves. With so much on offer, this is one of the best discs Cold Blue music has issued since the company’s revival two years ago.” —International Record Review

“Larry Polansky reveals yet another unashamedly tactile approach to musical material, forging an oblique angle to tradition…. Polansky’s cool and elegant set of 16 four-part canons…it’s a mark of his resourceful mind that he can adapt the basic rules into a series of such complex and varied works…. Polansky’s canons show the extreme liberties that can be born from such exacting discipline, given imagination and willing.” —The Wire magazine

“Larry Polansky is the modern dean of the mensuration canon…. These canons are clever, mysterious, and comical – part theory of relativity, part Rube Goldberg.” —ClassicalNet

“15 imaginative variations in the realm of canon, a type of composition where the writer gradually adds layers of musical material, creating density, complexity and texture. Anna Canon features Polansky’s 3-year-old daughter’s voice processed through a PC. This delightful cut prompted my cat to come over to the right speaker and cock her head at it in Nipper fashion. It’s the sound of elemental spirits having fun and one of the best pieces I’ve heard from anyone in years. #4 for marimba, played by William Winant, gradually becomes more rhythmically rich as it develops, sounding like more-accessible Conlon Nancarrow. Nerve Canon might be called the Procession of the Pachyderm Machines because of its elephantine assuredness. Elsewhere, Anthony Braxton and a field recording of frogs is laugh-out-loud funny, something all too rare in New Music. Only a couple of pieces come off as dry and academic. Almost all are intriguing and pleasurable. Hats way off to the very inventive Polansky.” —Richard Grooms, The Improvisor

“I was not familiar with the music of Larry Polansky before receiving this disc, but after enjoying the witty, clever, generally untraditional canons here, I will be keeping an eye out for more…. On every piece, regardless of its technological genesis, careful attention reveals the rigor Polansky applies to his materials, of whatever sort. The variety of sounds is entertaining and attractive, and sometimes amusing.” —Steve Holtje, Fanfare magazine

“Larry Polansky couples the gradual compression tactics of mensuration canons with the permutational cycles of several musical elements including pitch, rhythm, instrumentation, tempos, etc…. A concept so rich and productive as to involve different noted composers and performers and their own distinct versions. A concept as eagerly applied to the marimba, school children’s voices, a midtown Manhattan restaurant recording and a fretless electric guitar/cello/percussion trio…. There is something for everybody here on this CD. —I Heard a Noise webzine (Romania)

“A tranquil and delicate beginning ends in a chaotic whirlwind…and the result is pleasing…. The album is praiseworthy and accessible, especially when listening with an intellectual curiosity and leaving ones heart to doze.” —Deep Listenings (Italy)

“Each piece has its fascinating quirks.” —All-Music Guide

“A strangely varied but at the same time also a static CD. It has an entertaining appeal.” —Vital Weekly(The Netherlands)

“The works, which span nearly a quarter of a century, from 1978 to 2002, are sounded by a wide variety of instruments. Those played on marimba, gamelan and fretless guitar remain fairly quiet and forlorn throughout, while others like Kid Canon and Four Boys Mannin’ for strange, computer-manipulated voices really pack a punch at the end. Some other standouts in this vein include Nerve Canon, which sounds similar to one of Keiji Haino’s awkwardly lurching and slashing metallic synth nightmares, and an old favorite, #6, which collages together samples of pond frogs, a Javanese rebab, a baritone sax played by Anthony Braxton, and an ascending sine wave preset of a Kurzweil 250 sampler. The samples initially appear one after another, then gradually get cut up, rearranged and layered in myriad ways for quite a colorful quilt. Other tracks, like Headphone Canon, with its pleasantly pulsing and percolating computer, and Trio Canon, which boasts a hairshirt free improv battle between a guitar, cello and percussion, seem to inhabit a special realm all their own…. Overall, the Four-Voice Canons album is a fun, delightful, attention-to-detail listen that flows through a much more academic experimental vein than the lush atmospherics usually associated with Cold Blue.”—Arcane Candy

“Larry Polansky—one of America’s most influential theorists and composers…. It is interesting too that a composer whose work would be categorized by some as ‘academic’ is popular with fans of the noise and ambient-industrial scenes as well as the uptown new music world…. Polansky’s work in computer music is especially unique.” —E-Pulse (Internet newsletter of Pulse! and Classical Pulse!)

“Polansky is a highly original and uncompromising composer.” —Logosblad (Belgium)

“This West Coaster-turned-Dartmough prof is the heir apparent to the Cowell/Nancarrow/Tenney genius experimentalist mantle.” —Kyle Gann, Village Voice

“An unashamedly tactile approach to musical material, forging an oblique angle to tradition…. cool and elegant…it’s a mark of his resourceful mind that he can adapt the basic rules into a series of such complex and varied works…. Polansky’s canons show the extreme liberties that can be born from such exacting discipline, given imagination and willing.” —The Wire magazine

“This is one of the best discs Cold Blue music has issued since the company’s revival two years ago.” —Int’l Record Review