Kronos Quartet - Howl, U.S.A. (1996)

“Michael Daugherty’s acid collage on the words and work of J. Edgar Hoover [is] a hoot, but it’s also deadly serious… by the time you’re through with Sing Sing: J. Edgar Hoover you’re busy looking over your shoulder. [In Scott Johnson’s Cold War Suite, radical journalist I. F.] Stone’s voice is soft, decisive and clear, while Johnson and Kronos mirror his words (which are often repeated) to powerful effect… Quiet though it is, Stone/Johnson is infinitely more disturbing than Hoover/Daugherty. Howl grants a wild aural backdrop to a Whitmanesque epic that helped get the ‘beat’ generation on the rails. The sum effect of his work makes potent stuff of [Allen Ginsberg’s] poetical onslaught… Howl marks a triumphant conclusion to a programme that is as much ‘performance art’ as it is music.” - Gramophone