ACL 2024 ~ Top Ten Modern Composition

When a composer dies, a world falls silent; two of the composers honored below are no longer with us, but their music lives on.  One album stretches back even further to highlight a 9th century princess; another recalls the woman

Otto A. Totland ~ Exin

In a crowded field of felted piano albums, there’s something that sets Otto A. Totland apart. It’s hard to be sure precisely why, but his music has a magical quality that elevates it and makes it transcend the average. Perhaps

Holland Andrews ~ Wordless, Forgettings, Doubtless, Answers

Holland Andrews has released four EPs over the last three years, a quartet that deserves to be heard as a whole.  Each pair is available on vinyl, and together they may be viewed as an album, yielding a defined trajectory with

Vargkvint ~ Månens Hav

We often realise the power of something’s influence only when we become aware of its absence. For Swedish multi-instrumentalist and singer Sofia Nystand, aka Vargkvint, that thing is the sea, to which she devoted her first album Hav. She grew