Singleversity #26

Audiversity’s weekly column, slightly modified, on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 81.

MA:



One of Eastern Developments’ more mysterious artists, Ahmad Szabo quietly released an excellent 20m full-length in 2003. "Tobacco Path" is an excellent example of the subtly skittering electro-acoustic workouts that make up the humming This Book is About Words. While the bio insists otherwise, I have a suspicion that Szabo is just another moniker for label-owner Guillermo Scott Herren as the pattering electronics and processed melodic guitar playing creates buzzing pastoral soundscapes akin to Herren’s pre-Spanish folk Savath & Savalas material.

PM:



A lot of talk in the classical world this week surrounds the death of Pavarotti, but let us offer an alternative for the month in Tikhon Khrennikov. Oft-maligned by Shostakovitch and Prokofiev supporters, arguments in light of his death are painting him not as the Kremlin-backed hardliner but rather a helpless cog in the Politburo’s political machine. Sympathy remains slow in coming: This 2002 Moscow performance of "The Song of Drunken People" is the only evidence he ever existed on YouTube.