I purchased a tattered translation of Murasaki Shikibu’s 11th century novel The Tale of Genji yesterday. Since being made aware of the seminal work in the first volume of Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization series, I’d been hoping to happen upon an affordable edition.
A person would need to muster a considerable amount of determination to read the thousand-page classic. Sō Percussion recently threw down a similarly imposing gauntlet in the form of 25x25. As with the ancient Japanese scribe, the new music collective explores an unfamiliar world at great length.
An eight-disc box set featuring “more than 8 hours of entirely new and previously unreleased recordings, with each piece written for, in collaboration with, and premiered by Sō Percussion” marks the ensemble’s 25th anniversary. Here’s a more thorough explanation of the release’s contents.
Naturally, I hesitated before committing to 25x25. Upon crossing the rubicon, the musical extremity immediately became wildly unpopular with residents and visitors at my Kansas compound. Sō Percussion sounds better on headphones anyway.
Dan Deacon, Angélica Negrón and claire rousay are among the notable composers making wildly inventive new statements. I recommend hesitant listeners begin with Negrón’s amusingly moving "Inward Pieces". As for The Tale of Genji , I sense I’m up to the challenge.