New Music from London (side A)

1970's New Music from London collects four fairly quiet and introverted pieces.  Two of the pieces feature vocals, while the other two are instrumental.  Both vocalists sing in a traditional classical style, with lyrics from text poems.  While Harrison Birtwistle's "Ring a Dumb Carillon" has an excellent title, the foreground vocals do not neatly integrate to the more contemporary approach to tonality.  David Bedford's "Come in Here Child", with lyrics from a Kenneth Patchen poem, uses electronic amplification of John Tilbury's piano to create a more contemporary setting, where the vocals do not leap out.  While the liner notes explain that the speaker was far from the piano in a concert setting, it's hard to perceive resonance on this recording.  Of the instrumental pieces, Peter Maxwell Davies's "Antechrist" is the most dynamic piece on the album, using volume and propulsion at the beginning and end, from the largest ensemble featured here.  Richard Orton's "Cycle, for 2 or 4 Players" emphasizes its structural precision, with discrete changes happening against the flow of the performance.  The very simple cover design emphasizes both the seriousness assigned to the music and also the modernity of the contents.