Instruments of Happiness - The Happiness Handbook (2019)

This album from the virtuosic electric-guitar quartet Instruments of Happiness offers the premiere recordings of ''six colorful, thought-provoking works'' (Allan Kozinn) from Scott Godin, Tim Brady, Jordan Nobles, Maxime McKinley, Gordon Fitzell, and Emily Hall. The pieces ''offer an inviting glimpse of the varied approaches these composers bring to contemporary language, and to dealing with the electric guitar and its resources'' (Kozinn). Listeners will hear jagged rhythms and hard-edged European minimalism; calm, flowing harmonies; aggressively noisy textures; eerie slide guitar passages and dreamy harmonics; as well as fast-picked tremolando, hammered-on notes, and thundering chords. Listeners will also hear references to: progressive rock and hoedown music; flamenco and the blues; and the timbres and moves of early 1960s Duane Eddy and Link Wray guitar epics. The album follows the group's highly successful debut release, which received over a dozen excellent reviews, was a Philadelphia Inquirer Classical Pick, and landed on several Best-of-the-Year lists.