Ekmeles: We Live the Opposite Daring

Whereas another vocal ensemble might channel its collective energy into a seasonal programme of Yuletide chestnuts, Ekmeles dives headlong into obscure classics of the historical avant-garde and radical new works rooted in alternative tuning systems and innovative vocal techniques. These microtonal specialists have delivered world premieres of works by John Luther Adams, Taylor Brook, Ann Cleare, Christopher Trapani, and others and recently saw their efforts recognized with the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation's 2023 Ensemble Prize, the first American group to be so honoured.

Enthusiastic collaborators, the vocal sextet—soprano Charlotte Mundy, mezzo-soprano Elisa Sutherland, countertenor Timothy Parsons, tenor Tomás Cruz, baritone (and artistic director) Jeffrey Gavett, and bass Steven Hrycelak—has partnered with equally forward-thinking groups such as Talea Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, New Chamber Ballet, and loadbang in presentations of pieces by Wolfgang Rihm, Luigi Nono, and David Lang. On We Live the Opposite Daring, Ekmeles' follow-up to its head-turning 2020 debut A howl, that was also a prayer, the group turns its attention to new material by Zosha Di Castri, James Weeks, Hannah Kendall, Shawn Jaeger, Erin Gee, and Gavett.

Much of it's demanding, to be sure, but Ekmeles more than meets the challenge. No work better illustrates the high level of difficulty involved than Weeks's Primo Libro, whose sixteen concise madrigals requires the group to painstakingly sing in thirty-one-division equal temperament. While it feels related to quarter-comma meantone, a temperament commonly used in the Renaissance and early Baroque periods, the micro-divisions separating the thirty-one intervals (which means all notes are approximately 1/5th of a tone apart) give the work a decidedly modern feel. At the same time, the scoring of these madrigals for one, two, three, and four voices strengthens that connection to an earlier time. The microtonal pitches that emerge over the course of the eighteen-minute performance are naturally riveting when so many are unfamiliar, and hearing the singers' voices spiral through the work is at times vertigo-inducing.

The five other settings are no less arresting, each one imaginatively conceived and captivating to hear. In reimagining Sappho's ancient Greek poetry through a modern lens, Di Castri's We live the opposite daring also couples new and old. The first movement begins the work with the singers slapping their thighs in a steady triple-metre rhythm as they sing, their voices at certain moments gathering into resonant chords and elsewhere splintering into whoops, smears, and glissandi. The second movement takes experimentation to a further extreme when animalistic utterances, growls, hisses, and other cryptic vocalizations surface. Movement three charges into position with body percussion and a cartwheeling voice effect igniting an explosive array of declamations and chords. Soothing by comparison is the contemplative, chorale-like closing movement, a satisfying choice arriving as it does after the furious pace of the penultimate one.

Kendall describes this is but an oration of loss as a reimagining of “the songs, cries, lamentations, incantations, and sighs” of M. NourbeSe Philip's book-length poem “Zong!,” itself a reworking of a legal transcript detailing the drowning of 130 enslaved Africans thrown off a British slave ship in 1783. The ear's instantly caught by an introduction of softly wheezing harmonicas, which gradually shifts to a blossoming of vocal harmonies and furiously whispered fragments. References to the horrific event surface through the vocal haze, with words flickering across a dense array of harmonicas and voices. Meanwhile, the text for Jaeger's playful meditation love is comprises near-rhymes and anagrams derived from a text by feminist scholar bell hooks that explores the challenges associated with the word. The hypnotic interweaving of overlapping vocal lines and spoken phrases makes for a gripping, oft-ecstatic tapestry.

The three-part Waves was written by Gavett for a performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art using Oliver Beer's Vessel Orchestra, an instrument assembled from hollow objects in the Met's collection capable of producing a chromatic scale. Activated through feedback using individual microphones, Gavett controlled the instrument from a keyboard and sang as he played. The timbres that resulted prompted him to compose Waves as a series of beating patterns of glissandi and “almost-unisons.” In place of the no-longer-existing Vessel Orchestra, he used pre-existing samples of Ekmeles' voices to generate the dazzling panorama. Concluding the album is Gee's four-part Mouthpiece 36, which she created using 150 improvised vocal sounds as source material. Amazingly, the composer adds to the already staggering wealth of vocal effects already heard in the other works when whistles, clicks, whispers, neighs, and pops work their way into the presentation, the work's second and fourth movements particularly amazing in that regard.

A howl, that was also a prayer set a very high bar, but We Live the Opposite Daring is a more than credible follow-up. It also would be hard to imagine any other recording matching it for the sheer number of vocal effects and techniques it features. On its beguiling sophomore effort, this ever-intrepid outfit goes places few other vocal ensembles dare venture.

— Ron Schepper, 2.09.2024

The avant-garde chamber choir Ekmeles has just six members, but can attack the sound front like an army. They kick off their second release with a sonic ambush, showing off their skill with microtones and nontraditional tunings in Primo Libre by James Weeks.

Why Settle for 12 Tones?

This 17-minute tour-de-force is a set of 16 modern "madrigals" written in 31-division equal temperament (31-ET). That scale dates back to the mid-16th century but is rarely (to say the least) heard today. The tuning divides the octave not into the common 12 tones but 31 evenly spaced frequencies. It allows for chords and intervals that sound very weird and "out of tune" to our modern ears, accustomed to the 12-tone scale. An example that a non-musician can imagine is a neutral triad – a three-note chord that sits in between a major and a minor, sounding a little like each but not quite like either one.

It's not hard to play microtones (tones in between two of the typical 12) on a fretless string instrument like a violin. It's not hard to detune a guitar or piano to sound like a keyboard might have sounded before J.S. Bach popularized the well-tempered tuning (or to just sound eerie). Singing in an alternate tuning is another matter. A vocalist must cast off their intonation training to teach their vocal apparatus entirely new notes and intervals, then sing them consistently, correctly, and in harmony with others.

That's what you'll hear in the Primo Libre madrigals, written for one, two, or four voices. The ensemble's name, Ekmeles, according to its website, means, "in Ancient Greek music theory, tones of indefinite pitch and intervals with complex ratios, tones 'not appropriate for musical usage.'" But the group shows that what may seem "indefinite" actually has distinct meaning, with intriguing effects on the human ear and brain.

Ekmeles: Back to the Future

These shiny little pieces may be settings of 16th-century Italian lyrics, but they sound both alien and mechanistic, as if created by an advanced and robotically inclined otherworldly civilization. Weeks' score lets us hear solo and duo voices, where the "unnatural" intervals are plain to hear. We also hear sequences of four-part chords where individual parts move to adjacent microtones, altering the character of the chord in ways for which words don't come easily to mind because these chords don't trigger the specific emotions our brains have trained us to feel from music.

So yes, the piece shouts "I'm demonstrating something" more than "I'm seeking to make you feel something." But it can certainly make you feel that you've experienced something new.

The four-movement title piece is a new work by Zosha Di Castri setting fragments of poems by Sappho. Glissandos, ululations, sprechstimme, body percussion, and other effects elaborate a creepy sound palette that's twisted and dynamic. Unapologetically weird, this music outlines a strange psychedelic journey from ancient Greece to an uncertain and scary future.

Airy harmonicas in gently clashing tunings usher in this is but an oration of loss by Hannah Kendall. This Ekmeles commission sets an M. NourbeSe Philip text about a 1730 legal case concerning the deliberate drowning of 130 enslaved Africans. Aesthetically the most powerful piece on the album, it's a melange of lamentations including shouts, cries, mournful vocal harmonies and dissonances, and anxious spoken readings.

Shawn Jaeger's love is features intriguing microtonal harmonies and humorous spoken-word interjections. It also shows off the vocal skills of individual singers. But overall it smacks of quirkiness for the sake of quirkiness.

Cut and Paste

The album closes with two studio efforts. The first, Waves, has three short movements created by Ekmeles' artistic director and baritone Jeffrey Gavett. The piece is a vocal realization of music originally performed on artist Oliver Bear's "vessel orchestra" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gavett's stitched-together vocal samples add up to compelling vocalise: introspective sighing; assertive chanting; then a haunting darkness with an inconclusive resolution.

For the four short segments of "Mouthpiece 36," Erin Gee employs recordings of the singers scatting, humming, growling, swooping in glissandos, whistling, going nasal, articulating nonsense syllables, and even indulging in rich, natural-sounding harmonizing. Enough of the sounds resemble animal utterances that their having being "improvised in nature spaces" rings true. These are curious and funny little pieces that don't seem to take themselves too seriously, even if the composer's liner notes do.

All told, We Live the Opposite Daring cements Ekmeles as one of our foremost experimental vocal ensembles. The album comes out February 16, 2024 on New Focus Recordings. I can't wait to hear what they record next.

Their February and March 2024 concerts take place in New York City and include performances of music by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Arvo Pärt. Hannah Kendall's piece from this album is on the menu for a free concert March 23 at St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University.

— Jon Sobel, 2.09.2024

https://www.wruu.org/broadcasts/48941

— Dave Lake, 2.26.2024

New York’s Ekmeles are one of the most probing and experimental vocal ensembles in the US, a compact group with an outsized mastery of both ancient and modern approaches. They delve into the past on opening gem Primo Libro by British composer James Weeks, the director of Exaudi—which often feels like a sister ensemble to Ekmeles. Weeks created an uninterrupted collection of 16 brief madrigals—in solos, duos, trios, and quartets—written using a 31-tone scale once common in the Baroque era, placing meticulous demands on each singer. The ensemble nails it, taking us back in time while also suggesting something futuristic, with forms and lyrics eluding any clear reference. Zosha di Castri’s title work also collects ancient ideas, recasting texts by Greek poet Sappho and borrowing folk traditions in a three-movement piece that incorporates mouth percussion and other extended techniques from the vocalists. Hannah Kendall’s this is but an oration of loss takes material from a poem by M. NourbeSe Philip recounting the brutal story of 130 enslaved Africans that were drowned in 1783, thrown off of a British slave ship; the piece blends rustic harmonica, narrative fragments, onomatopoetic utterances, and swooping harmonies to create a haunting, troubling resonance. Additional pieces by Shawn Jaeger, ensemble member Jeffrey Gavett, and Erin Gee vividly inspire yet further stylistic excursions, all executed with unerring intonation, dramatic flair, and rhythmic vitality, thriving within and outside choral orthodoxy.

— Peter Margasak, 2.29.2024

We Live the Opposite Daring, the sophomore album from the New York-based vocal sextet Ekmeles, is immediately magnificent. Released Feb. 16 on New Focus Recordings, the album is a tour de force in contemporary vocal music, featuring a massive variety of techniques, approaches, and styles, while never losing sight of its expressive power in these technical pursuits.

The album opens with James Weeks’ Primo Libro, a series of 18 continuous madrigals for one, two, or four voices, cast in 31-tone equal temperament. This tuning system means that each neighboring tone is approximately one-fifth of a whole-step apart, as opposed to the half-steps used in most Western music. This allows for much finer control of intervals and lines, as well as more ‘pure’ harmonies that closely match simple ratio relationships. But it also requires incredible skill from the performers in producing these extremely precise intervals. Luckily, Ekmeles is up to the task, bringing this work vividly to life. Every detail is immaculately rendered, creating vibrant, resonant harmonies that dazzlingly shift and slide about in this incredible work.

Based on texts by the ancient Greek poet Sappho, Zosha Di Castri’s We live the opposite daring begins simply with body percussion and slowly stacking harmonies before rapidly expanding out into a dense kaleidoscope of semi-independent voices. Di Castri uses a downward slide as a primary motif in the first two movements, building into a powerful climax that gradually sighs away. Ekmeles’ performance of the sensitive final movement, which highlights the lyrical qualities of Sappho’s poetry, is particularly stirring; they sing the subtle and deceptively complex music breathtakingly, with absolute grace and poise.

Hannah Kendall’s this is but an oration of loss begins with a dissonant array of harmonicas that saturate the audio spectrum, creating a dense curtain of sound through which voices slowly emerge: fragmented, spoken, whispered, and sung. The piece reconfigures text from M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!, a book-length poem about the drowning of 130 enslaved Africans, thrown off the British slave ship Zong in the Caribbean in 1781. The piece is tense, anxious, and dense throughout, struck through with an air of lamentation that conveys the seriousness and tragic horror of its subject.

Meanwhile, Shawn Jaeger’s love is evokes Ligeti with disjointed, rhythmic singing and extensive use of distinct vocal timbres that remind me of the Nonsense Madrigals. This setting of text by American feminist author bell hooks also includes significant spoken passages, which are handled as readily and expressively by the ensemble members as their sung work. In particular, the solos midway through the work are both extremely difficult and extremely well executed, with the transitions between spoken and sung tones handled convincingly by each singer. Eventually, Jaeger builds to a powerful climax that breaks out into wild melismas, foreshadowed by the repetition of “crashing” and “smashing” earlier in the work.

Jeffrey Gavett originally wrote Waves for voices and Oliver Beer’s Vessel Orchestra, which was a sound installation that used microphone feedback in hollow objects to create resonance. Vessel Orchestra no longer exists, so Gavett repurposed the piece using recorded samples of Ekmeles’ singing to explore near unisons that produce the auditory effect of beating. The result is strikingly otherworldly, as voices move, jump, and interact in ways that feel simultaneously human and inhuman.

The final work, Erin Gee’s Mouthpiece 36, features the widest variety of vocal effects, running a vast gambit of clicks, whistles, breaths, fricatives, and more things than can be named. To generate material, Gee recorded and cataloged 150 improvised vocal sounds that became the source for the work. Despite this outward strangeness, the piece is immediately approachable with interesting, and at times even groovy, rhythmic schemes and expertly crafted harmonies that keep the piece grounded. Each of the movements shares materials and ideas, but remains distinct, helping the work maintain a sense of freshness throughout. The final movement is particularly excellent, with Gee using extended vocal techniques in the context of a slowly developing choral setting. Ekmeles is at their finest here, demonstrating their mastery of both traditional and experimental vocal styles and creating a wonderfully intriguing and moving vocal texture.

— Sofia Rocha, 3.14.2024