I recently added a review of George Crumb's "Voices From A Forgotten World" to the
Newent Orchestra's website. I really didn't think I was going to like this music as it's based on old North American folk tunes. I have bad memories of "Bringing In the Sheaves" and patriotic marching songs from early music-lesson school days. Those songs were the antithesis of everything that was new, young and controversial then in the music culture I grew up in. However, they are here presented along with percussion accompaniment that gives them an otherworldly flavour, echoes rather than statements. That was OK, surreal even. I've listened to a fair amount of George Crumb's music since being hooked by "Black Angels", his ode to the Vietnam War. There is a particular title in that called "Night of the Electric Insects" which is a piece of voodoo.
