catalogue

BRANCA, GLENN

THE THIRD ASCENSION (MVD AUDIO)

BRANCA, GLENN - THE THIRD ASCENSION 136901
format:
1 CD
release:
25.10.2019
label:
MVD AUDIO
item ID:
136901
barcode:
0760137305927
The follow up to Glenn Branca's legendary 1981 release The Ascension as well as 2010's The Ascension: The Sequel.

SYSTEMS NEUTRALIZERS would like to announce The Third Ascension, the first release from avant guard composer Glenn Branca since his death in 2018.

The Glenn Branca Ensemble will commemorate the release with the first posthumous live NYC performance of his guitar music at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn on what would have been his 71st birthday on October 6th, 2019.

This is a return to the 4-guitar, bass and drums format of his legendary 1981 release The Ascension as well as 2010's The Ascension: The Sequel.

The recording is a live performance by The Glenn Branca Ensemble at NYC's The Kitchen in 2016.

Emerging from the late 70's No Wave scene and moving into composition, Branca's 45 years of work as a composer included music for experimental rock bands, large ensemble instrumentals for electric guitars, symphonies for both electric instrumentation and acoustic orchestras, chamber ensembles, an opera, a ballet, choral works, and music for film, dance, theater, and installation art.

Membership in his Ensemble jump started the careers of Sonic Youth, Swans and Helmet and his influence on the worlds of Rock, Contemporary Classical, Experimental, and New Music is incalculable.

The Glenn Branca Ensemble will commemorate the release with the first posthumous live NYC performance of his guitar music at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn on what would have been his 71st birthday on October 6th, 2019.

Press Quotes: Bells are ringing, Loudly, A celestial choir screams in epiphanic ecstasy.

The music unrolls like a blistering juggernaut, spiked with scalding tempos and latticework of overtones and textures that conjure voices, horns, violins and cathedral chimes from thin air.

Three hundred years earlier Branca would have been hanged for witchcraft. _Ted Drozdowski, MUSICIAN MAGAZINE This music does somehow seem to take on the aspect of an event in nature or an act of God.

_Richard Buell, BOSTON GLOBE
 
  • Tracklisting
  • 1.1. VELVETS AND PEARLS
  • 1.2. GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM
  • 1.3. THE SMOKE (GUITAR CONCERTO FOR ARAD EVANS)
  • 1.4. LESSON NO. 4
  • 1.5. TWISTING IN SPACE
  • 1.6. COLD THING (LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI)