Kanal
(Finnadar) Used LP $6.00
Flynn’s inspiration reaches back to the cruelty waged upon Poland during World War II as depicted by Andrzej Wajda’s film of the same name. The music evokes enormous physicality — the ear recognizes gestures, rather than motifs or intervals, which leap around, pummeling the keyboard. The effect is nearly inhuman. Kenneth Derus, in the accompanying booklet, makes an apt comparison with Conlon Nancarrow’s music for player piano. The texture thins out briefly, but erupts again into bristling flurries, like quickly shifting memories, leading to almost frantic episodes of crushing violence. From 1987
GEORGE FLYNN / EUGENE GRATOVICH
Play The Music Of Cage, Flynn, Ives, Messiaen
(Finnadar) Used LP $7.00
Piano and violin duets from 1982. “Ives and Messiaen remained touchstones in Flynn’s later compositions — specifically, the density, dynamic contrasts, and incongruity in Ives’ willful methods of construction, Messiaen’s self-designed harmonic and rhythmic systems, and the propensity of both toward a state of energetic ecstasy.”