Leonie Klein - Chattering Birds (2023) Hi-Res

Undisputedly brilliant in jazz and rock at all times, the percussion in all its diversity is proving more and more predestined for new music.

Leonie Klein, a stirring artist in this field, offers here, partly in duo with Isao Nakamura, a compact, carefully compiled selection of today's music for percussion instruments.

A solo version of Peter Eötvös's percussion concerto Speaking Drums is performed in true virtuoso style by the interpreter, with the voice of the percussionist joining the sounds of the drums. Vinko Globokar's Dialog über Erde experimentally exposes instruments to water, even in a small aquarium – a subtly elemental event. In Sara Glojnarić’s Latitudes #2, the soloist on the drum set then enters into a breathtakingly virtuoso duel with artificial rhythm impulses from the tape. In Dai Fujikura's Chattering Birds, the duo gives an astonishing demonstration of how much music is possible while radically reduced to finger cymbals. In Ursula Mamlok's Variations and Interludes, again arranged for solo by Leonie Klein, the form emerges between the groups of instruments, and Hosokawa's Windscapes explores the contrast between vertical accent beats and horizontal sweeping and scratching sounds. And finally, Uroš Rojko's Ritem kože, after many changes of perspective, constitutes the aesthetically homogeneous virtuoso conclusion to this album.