Acclaimed composer/musician Tyondai Braxton will release the LP HIVE1 on May 12th via Nonesuch Records. This will be his debut for the amazing 50 year old label, as well as his first record in six years. What has Braxton been doing in the meantime, considering his avant-rock band Battles disbanded in 2010…well, the in-demand artist has been busy working on commissions for the likes of The Bang on a Can All Stars and Kronos Quartet, to name a few, as well as collaborating with Philip Glass during the ATP I’ll Be Your Mirror festival in 2012. In addition, he’s been composing HIVE1, which began simply as HIVE, a performance piece that debuted at New York’s Guggenheim Museum in 2013, before traveling around the world to be performed at the Sydney Opera House, the MONA FOMA festival in Tasmania, and London’s Barbican Centre for Nonesuch’s 50th anniversary celebration.
“Scout1” is our first listen in on the new work. The track is the last cut on the upcoming record, and it’s a tour de force that demonstrates Braxton’s facility for composing seemingly open and free-form ambient spaces, as well as complex, far-flung polyrhythm. The track’s initially sparse beginnings and seemingly random juggling of sound elements might remind one of another Nonesuch great, Morton Subotnick, but “Scout1” gradually coalesces around a worldly collection of rhythms that seem to call and respond between players, while conjuring up Amazonian jungles and off-planet cities of the distant future.
Tyondai Braxton will play a three night residency at the Knoxville Museum of Art, as part of the Big Ears musical festival this coming March 27-29th, and he’s scheduled to play HIVE1 on each of those evenings. Not to be missed!
