Julius Eastman - Unjust Malaise (VBR)

   
Year: 2005
Genre: Modern Classical
Country: US
Link (PT 1): http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?0j4673ie4gby9t4
Link (PT 2): http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?8p42sln0nmg7sn2


*deep breath*

Julius Eastman is my favorite composer and if I could tell you why that is in a matter of a few paragraphs he wouldn't really be my favorite. Eastman was born in the suburbs of western NY (you know, like us), and went to college at Ithaca. He spent most of his life composing music before attempting to acquire a teaching job at Cornell University, and when they rejected him, he took to drugs and alcohol; dying alone at a hospital in Buffalo in 1990.

He's most known today for his innovative technique which he describes on this album as an "organic principle", where each measure of music contains all the information from previous measures, and eventually the music is taken out at a "gradual and logical rate."


"Stay on It" is the first piece on the album, an obvious example of the organic principle, where the repeated cadence provides a framework for both unity and deception. Eastman used silence, like John Cage, to keep the piece lively and interesting, and at the middle of the piece it begins to disintegrate upon itself, completely removing the cadence from the equation.


"If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?" is a much different piece, a much more challenging piece. Taking name from a populist platitude, the piece contains two horns, four trumpets, two trombones, tuba, piano, chimes, and more. Most of the piece is an escalation of half-steps, expressing minimalism with a large ensemble. Again Eastman borrows from Cage, writing a piece without a beginning, middle or end, a piece in itself. It ends with a chromatic violin solo, but never persists upon itself.


The pieces on the second piece are politically jarring, written during a time period when Eastman desired some sort of rebellion. "The Holy Presence of Joan D'Arc" is a piece that almost escapes description, or at least beyond Eastman's introduction: "It is a reminder to those who think they can destroy liberators by acts of malice, treachery and murder...Like all organizations, especially governments and religious organizations, they oppress each other in order to perpetrate themselves. Their methods of oppression are legion."

"Crazy Nigger" is my favorite piece of music that I have come across thus far. To me, it is a reminder that music still holds new territory, new meaning, that one can breach through reality with sound alone.  It is the most energetic piece on the album, written for four pianos, one played by Eastman. It is split into three parts: "Gay Guerilla", "Evil Nigger" and "Crazy Nigger." Gay Guerilla contains a pulsating rhythm heard counterpoint to one or more of the other pianos. Half way through, a familiar piece comes through--"A Mighty Fortress is Our God", Martin Luther's hymn, in octaves. Eastman wrote the piece as a "gay manifesto." Evil Nigger is ever more pulsating, with a faster tempo. Crazy Nigger ends the piece, creating a wall of tension before coming to rest on the lowest C sharp of each piano at once, from which the final harmonic series is built up.


Well, it wouldn't be my favorite album if I couldn't write something about it.