Monuments Emerge, by Nick Vasallo

Monuments Emerge

by Nick Vasallo

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1.	Antares Rising 07:07	buy track
2.	Evanescent Revolutions: I. Implosion 01:01	buy track
3.	Evanescent Revolutions: II. Bhaskara 01:07	buy track
4.	Evanescent Revolutions: III. Happiness Only Real When Shared 01:53	buy track
5.	Explosions in the Sky 06:58	buy track
6.	Transient Reflections: I. Intertwine…unwind 01:10	buy track
7.	Transient Reflections: II. The Abyss 01:42	buy track
8.	Transient Reflections: III. Stained Glass Window 01:30	buy track
9.	Elements of Metal: I. Collapsing Obsidian Sun 06:43	buy track
10.	Shades of December 02:59	buy track
11.	Elements of Metal: II. Omnes perituri 04:18	buy track
12.	Five: I. Overtones 03:04	buy track
13.	Five: II. I Vent In On 01:11	buy track
14.	The Vertigo Series: IV. The Battle Within 06:18	buy track
15.	The Fifth World: I. Cynosure: A New Phase 02:46	buy track
16.	The Fifth World: II. The Rise of Blue 02:00	buy track
17.	The Fifth World: III. Purification Times 02:56	buy track
18.	The Fifth World: IV. Messengers From the Sky 02:30	buy track
19.	The Vertigo Series: V. The Aftermath 06:39	buy track
20.	Oblivion 07:14	buy track

about

Monuments Emerge chronicles the work of prolific AsianAmerican composer Nicholas Vasallo, spanning a period from 2007 to 2012. Fusing Western classical music, Asian classical music, and heavy metal (he is a member of Antagony and Oblivion), Vasallo’s work plumbs the inner depths where these traditions come together, finding their roots in order to draw them out into expansive sonic
landscapes.

Album opener “Antares Rising” blends a traditional Western wind ensemble with a Japanese taiko drum group; the collision of the two creating a texture greater than the sum of its parts. “Evanescent Revolutions” evokes Conlon Nancarrow’s oeuvre of player piano works, working in sections to explore the breadth of the keyboard via repetition and expansion.

Things get a bit more metal on “Explosions in the Sky,” a piece scored for horn, piano, violin, viola, cello, and percussion. For all its thoughtful harmonic development, no self-respecting metal fan would have a problem banging his or her head to this one. That aesthetic finds a further development in “Collapsing Obsidian Sun,” where Vasallo explores the timbral contrasts between the traditional Korean haegum and the Western violin. If the violin is like a clean guitar, the haegum is an overdriven one, with the cello providing drive in the lower register.

Throughout Monuments Emerge, Vasallo is pulling threads together, even as he seeks to push at the boundaries that have traditionally separated musical traditions. With transcendence the goal, the results are often intensely austere. Vasallo is an explorer of sound, melting and repurposing his materials, always in search of new horizons.

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released April 24, 2012

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about

Nick Vasallo

Award-winning composer, teacher, vocalist and guitarist, Nick Vasallo is "a composer on a mission and one possessed of a distinctive voice" - Michael Quinn, 2012 (The Classical Review). His music exhibits "strokes of genius that blend the density of heavy metal with the harmonics of gamelan, the polyrhythms of taiko, and atonality." - François Couture, 2012 (Monsieur Délire) ... more

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