Reviews
- George Wallace (Genre, I’m Only Dancing) on The Man Who Hated Everything:
- Jon Pareles (New York Times) on Behind the Wallpaper:
- Lindsey Rhoades (Village Voice) on Behind the Wallpaper:
- Alex Ross (The New Yorker) on Liebeslied:
- Aaron Keebaugh (Boston Classical Review) on Willingly:
- Will Robin (Bandcamp Blog) on my and Jenny Olivia Johnson’s It’s hard even to say it:
In a piece that ended with a sung litany of the things, innumerable, that Zappa hated, the first two thirds exemplified much that he undeniably loved: doo-wop harmonies, rapid fire wildly melodic tuned percussion, post-Coltrane free jazz, the rigorous modernism of Varèse, all thrown together as if without care or without caring, yet with precision and a desire that each bit be heard, through and through. … It is also a total blazing hoot. (read more)
“The songs were atmospheric with ambiguous tonality, drawing chuckles along with hushed curiosity. They quivered, hovered, paused and slipped in and out of ghostly waltzes before the last one, ‘Spires,’ resolved into the sweet major chords of an old movie score’s happy ending.” (read more)
“A dizzying collage of dreamlike impressions cleverly obscuring a straightforward narrative … somewhere between avant-garde composition, mysterious artifact, and sci-fi thriller.” (read more)
“A surreal takeoff on love songs of the forties and fifties. It begins with lushly orchestrated vocal kitsch … and then disintegrates into nightmarish fragments, with the singer (the riveting Mellissa Hughes) muttering about ‘dark unending corridors.’ It’s like a Buñuel film in miniature, and it achieves perfection.” (read more)
“The piece was both humorous and, at times, uncomfortable to listen to … refreshingly tonal and popping with rhythmic energy.” (read more)
“First we hear Temple’s lackadaisical reminiscence atop throbbing beats and crackling electronics, stark and listless. Then we enter into Johnson’s territory, a more spacious and ethereal realm, with haunting voices floating in the distance. The work exposes the fickleness of retention and shared personal archives, recalling Nico Muhly’s ‘Mothertongue.'” (read more)
Interviews
- Brin Solomon (VAN Magazine) interviews me about polystylism, queerness and cuteness:
- Roberta Michel (Cadillac Moon Ensemble) interviews me about Switch: A Science-Fiction Micro-Opera:
- Chris McGovern (The Glass) interviews me about End:
I use the word ‘cutie’ a lot to describe my partners and their partners and the whole culture of the queer poly[amorous] circle that I’m in, and I love cuteness, I love cuteness as an artistic phenomenon. I think it has the power to be disarming. I want to do it in a way that has fangs, but, you know, adorable fangs.” (read more)
“I remember reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven a year or two ago, and one thing that jumped out at me was that Le Guin, writing in 1971, expected businessmen of the future to sport shoulder-length hair and goatees. That must have seemed pretty plausible at that point in history. Instead we got Reagan, yuppies and privatization. That’s not as bad as a tyrannical dictatorship that commits mass murder and burns a third of the country to the ground, which is what happens in Switch, but it’s still a far cry from peace, love and understanding.” (read more)
“Making a recording gives you enormous control over the nuances of production and vocal style — and I’m very picky about vocal style. (A friend once joked that if someone wrote a biography of me, it would be called ‘Fuck Vibrato Forever: The Alex Temple Story.’)” (read more)