New Thread Quartet - Plastic Facts (2019)

''Plastic Facts'' is the debut album of New Thread Quartet, a NYC-based saxophone quartet hailed as adventurous, rule-breaking (NewMusicBox). The album serves as a showcase of modern compositions for saxophone quartet which utilize extended techniques, and includes music by Michael Djupstrom, Marcelo Lazcano, Anthony Gatto, and Richard Carrick. The first piece, Test, refers to the difficulty of writing for the performers. Michael Djupstrom wanted to make it a real challenge to play- and also signify that the work represents something new for the composer as well, especially in its harmonic language. This piece is followed by Ser, which is built around the Buddhist phrase, "We are what we think. Everything we are arose from our thoughts," from the Dhammapada. Next is the title track, Plastic Facts, which is an expression the composer first encountered in the writings of architect Le Corbusier. The term plastic facts refers to basic architectural necessities that are constraints to work with, or bend somehow, to make something new and beautiful. The final piece, Harmonixity, is a sonically inspired composition based on two different acoustical phenomena. One is the natural harmonic overtone of each saxophone and how its overtones change as it blends between the fundamental and lower harmonics. The second is the resulting harmony of acoustical reverberation, where a single line creates a sonic tapestry through its sustaining decay.