Maldoror is a solo album by cellist Erik Friedlander recorded in Berlin and released on the Brassland label featuring music inspired by the French poet Comte de Lautréamont's Les Chants de Maldoror.[1][2]
| Maldoror | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | November 11, 2003 | |||
| Recorded | April 25, 2002 Teldex Studios, Berlin | |||
| Genre | Avant-garde, Jazz, Contemporary classical music | |||
| Length | 40:23 | |||
| Label | Brassland HWY-005 | |||
| Producer | Michael Montes | |||
| Erik Friedlander chronology | ||||
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Reception
edit| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [3] |
| Pitchfork |    [4] |
The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4½ stars stating "For all its intensity, it is nearly shockingly accessible, even with its far-flung and dramatic sense of dynamics. This is an album created to be listened to as one work, the individual selections all contribute to a haunting, hunted whole, and don't really exist well outside their framework as such. Nonetheless, this is a brilliantly conceived and executed recording, alluringly musical, and decadently humorous in places. As Friedlander's latest chapter, it is also his finest".[3]
Pitchfork rated the album 8.3 out of 10 observing that "The formula is simple: put a piece of Ducasse's text in front of the cellist in the studio, along with a few notes, and let him compose music to match it on the spot. It panned out, more or less, not because Maldoror was conceived as a series of songs, but because Erik Friedlander can do things with a cello that should have a reasonable listener fearing for her life".[4]
Jazz Review's John Kelman wrote "Maldoror is, quite simply, an important recording of solo improvised pieces, regardless of the instrument; but all the more compelling because it shows a side to the cello that has not been seen before".[5]
Track listing
editAll compositions by Erik Friedlander
- "May It Please Heaven" - 3:31
- "One Should Let One's Fingernails Grow" - 3:08
- "The Wind Groans" - 5:30
- "O Stern Mathematics" - 4:54
- "The Palace of Pleasures" - 4:33
- "Here Comes the Madwoman" - 2:54
- "I Am Filthy" - 4:53
- "Flights of Starlings" - 3:47
- "He Contemplates the Moon" - 3:31
- "A Sewing-Machine and an Umbrella" - 3:45
Personnel
edit- Erik Friedlander – cello
References
edit- ^ Eric Friedlander discography Archived 2012-03-21 at the Wayback Machine accessed January 8, 2014
- ^ Brassland discography accessed January 8, 2014
- ^ a b Jurek, T. Allmusic Review accessed January 8, 2014
- ^ a b Hoffman, J. Pitchfork album review, January 26, 2004
- ^ Kelman, J. Jazz Review review Archived 2014-01-08 at the Wayback Machine, June 26, 2003