Customer Reviews

Paranoid Cheese

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Hard to believe there are no reviews for this CD. Mellits is hardly unknown among new music buffs: the Kronos Quartet and Bang On a Can AllStars have both recorded his work. I myself only found about him through uploaders on YouTube, and that only a few days ago. Mellits's music was such a revelation that I've ordered and downloaded all I could find and have yet to hear anything that isn't really terrific.

I've been a Steve Reich fan for years, but few younger composers seemed to have picked up his gauntlet, and many seem to have dropped back into conservative, romantic traditions. Enter Mellits, who obviously owes a debt to Reich and to a lesser extent Glass, but also the new sonic possibilities of heavy metal rock (I'm guessing) and a feel for the contrasting timbres and textures of different instrumental combinations that rivals Stravinsky. In fact the pieces on this CD are all short, like most of Stravinsky's chamber pieces, but given Mellits' usual pace, full of changes and incidents and inventions that are seductive, surprising, non-stop delights. The pieces may be short, but they're big.

There's a lot of wit here (viz: the titles), but it would be a mistake to think this music is ephemeral or silly. Someone on YouTube commented that Mellits has to be a great craftsman to make such diverse instruments and cadences and ideas cohere; that we're not aware of any strain or struggle may testify to a huge talent. Mellits in the liner notes says that composing is "the ultimate joy." He communicates his enthusiasm in this CD; his exuberance is infectious.

Is he a "great" composer, as another YouTube uploader called him? I'd like to think so, if only because he's so unremittingly enjoyable for me, and over repeated hearings. One more word: bring your full attention; this ain't background music.