Gigantic Dancing Human Machine

Dutch composer Louis Andriessen turned minimalism upside down in the 1970’s with his radical musical responses to American experimentalists Reich, Riley and Glass. He challenged these composers’ trance-like states with a European sense of edginess and angularity, and the results are exciting and overpoweringly aggressive.

Hoketus – the landmark of European minimalism – takes its name from the medieval art of hocketing, splitting a single melody between two groups of instruments separated in space. Earth-shattering and tribal in its elemental power, Andriessen described this piece as a Gigantic Dancing Human Machine. Its recording is an international collaboration of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, members of London’s Icebreaker ensemble, and musicians from Andriessen’s own group.

Workers Union and Hout both generate high-voltage energy out of wild unison melodies and rhythms. The Bang on a Can All-Stars have worked closely with Andriessen over the past 10 years, bringing to these works their intense dedication and extreme musicality while performing them all over the world.

“A fiercely aggressive group, combining the power and punch of a rock band with the precision and clarity of a chamber ensemble.”
–The New York Times

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For more information about the composer, visit the artist page for Louis Andriessen.

For more information about  the performers, visit the artist page for the Bang on a Can All-Stars.

For more information on this release, click here.