Here are crisp performances of four chamber pieces representing nearly two decades of work by artist / composer Chris Newman. Some might have trouble actually hearing music. Newman’s style gives an impression of unschooled naïveté. The opening single-movement 12-minute Symphony declares Newman’s aims: Instruments tread in unison, generally contributing to one of two lines. The notes imply a “two-part counterpoint with itself” although traditional canonic activity is not immediately apparent. Indeed, harmony and structure are ignored, as if music notation was employed without being understood. The ear craves associations. Sometimes the aimless lines recall Satie or Wolff, although there is a hardness suggesting a short temper. The unison instruments (flute, clarinet, xylophone, piano, trumpet, trombone and double bass) imitate a synthesizer.

Newman provides Cologne’s speaking part, a cut-up text extracted from travel brochure mistranslations haphazardly tossed over instrumental accompaniment. Ghosts’ events were guided by the structure of Ibsen’s play in no immediately evident way. Any halting imitations of jazz are probably accidental. Ghost Symphony (20:28) startles with actual triads and chords, which are but ornaments here. The chords are actually Beethoven’s. Newman has appropriated the first movement of the Fifth, applying new notes to Beethoven’s rhythms. Even if in on the joke, Newman’s choices make it hard to follow, and not just because the tempo is slow.

— Grant Chu Covell, lafolia, January 2015
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