Mischa Blanos is one of those artists who are tirelessly working to escape the tedium of composing around a single genre. It's boredom that makes him rage against the creative plateau; it's fatigue that drives him to immerse himself into manifold richly-hued projects. With each migration he brings something new into the next one as if hunting down moods, feelings and soundscapes in a nomadic way of life.
In Crossrhodes, he brings contemporary classical music from his neoclassical acoustic-electronic solo project and gracious patterns from his techno endeavors. Here you have a gentle Mischa Blanos struck in awe by the sounds of the clarinet, sometimes weaving around threads with his Rhodes, so careful not to touch the fragile silky core and sometimes lending a child-like hand smoothly guiding the story with his piano and synths into places of sincere curiosity.
Khori Ander embodies the alias of Horia Dumitrache, triggering the leap to cross the borders of the familiar. While the contemporary clarinet performer got his international kudos on well-known stages and along with much acclaimed classical orchestras around the world, Khori Ander is convinced that focusing in a single musical direction would make him feel a stranger in his own house.
In Crossrhodes he dives headfirst into composition and improvisation quenching that intense thirst of discovering what his wind instruments would sound like in the hands of a liberated performer.
"The seven stories unfolded on this album, debugged by a fabulous clarinet technique and a wonderful piano craft, narrate about the Universe, about the Chaos and also about the miracle of the musical sound.
These imaginative stories, made with talent by musicians Mischa Blanos & Khori Ander, talk about a special attitude towards a distinguished estate of mind, a unique colour of the space around us, devoted to a spirit of meditation, introspection on vast temporal surfaces, each piece representing facets of the same unique and unrepeatable algorithm of an improvisational euphonious Universe.
By developing ideas in the process Cezar Lazar engineering craftsmanship reveals the outcome of a thoughtful recording and duo's synergy, refining and defying predictable musical territories."
Dr. Irina Hasnas
Composer, Musicologist , Journalist and Professor
Mischa Blanos - acoustic piano, electric piano, synthsesizers.
Khori Ander - bass clarinet, clarinet.
Cezar Lazăr - electronics and sound manipulation on track 7.
Compositions by Mihail Simeonov & Horia Dumitrache.
No overdubs except track Crossrhodes.
Recorded, engineered, mixed and produced by Cezar Lazăr
Assistant engineer Stefan Mihăilescu
Vinyl & Digital master Cezar Lazăr
Lacquer Cut Mike Grinser @ Manmade Mastering
Photo by Cezar Lazăr
Art direction by Tudor Năstase
Recorded in 2019 @ Understand Studios, Bucharest
Distributed by ourown.ro
Part spoken word, part contemporary composition, in this four-movement piece the Australian Art Orchestra explore isolation and connection. Bandcamp New & Notable Jul 13, 2021