On April 29 Cantaloupe Music will be releasing Alarm Will Sound presents Modernists the latest recording by the creative tour de force ensemble, Alarm Will Sound. One of the featured compositions on the release is none other than the enigmatic and challenging Revolution 9 by The Beatles (soundcloud and bandcamp) beautifully arranged by Matt Marks (listen below).
From the forthcoming liner notes:
Modernism scares people. Is it because it’s new? That can’t be the whole explanation, because everybody likes to discover new things, right? Maybe it's the amount of newness. While discovery always involves a degree of unfamiliarity, modernism can drive really far into unfamiliar territory, becoming distant from any known landmarks. So much unfamiliarity can be scary.
It can even be alienating. The unpopularity of Revolution 9 (by one of the world’s most popular bands) is the evidence that the Beatles' experimentation with found sound, tape loops, and studio technology pushed their fans away. Revolution 9 is modernist because it is a song that’s not a song, something so unfamiliar that it not only breaks with the past, but also breaks its own category.
Very much looking forward to this new release.