For the past decade a new genre has been emerging among composers in their twenties and thirties, which I’d call New Acoustic Chamber Music. People like cellist Zöe Keating, keyboardist Max Richter, multi-instrumentalists Johann Johannsson, Nico Muhly, Robert Marcel Lepage, Jonny Greenwood, Ólafur Arnalds, Hildur Gudnadottir...the list goes on and on the deeper I dig. Many of these folks find employment in film soundtracks, but release melancholy instrumental suites of their own in between films.
My music buddy in Minnesota is similarly besotted by this new genre.
We’ve been trying mightily to get a handle on it, but there’s just so much coming out and already out that it’s overwhelming. The kids these days, it’s not all about hip-hop and autotune pop, thank goodness.
A partial solution occurred to me Wednesday. I went to start a new Pandora station seeded with Ólafur Arnalds only to discover there was already an official Pandora station for that. Full of beautiful semi-classical semi-New Age semi-soundtrack instrumentals, including (of course) lots of names I hadn’t run across yet. I’ve been listening to it nonstop since Wednesday and still haven’t had a moment of satiety.
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