an album of imaginative, evocative instrumental music
Grammy Award-winning, Chicago-based percussion quartet Third Coast Percussion teams up with influential, genre-defying multi-instrumentalist, record producer, songwriter, singer, and composer Devonté Hynes (aka Blood Orange) for an album of imaginative, evocative instrumental music originally created as the live soundtrack for choreography by the adventurous Hubbard Street Dance Chicago company.
Although he is now known primarily as a singer, songwriter, and producer in the pop music world, classical music was the first music Devonté Hynes knew. The three works on this album, all world-premiere recordings, represent Hynes’s debut on disc as a classical composer. Hynes says of Fields: “It's the first time I've written music that I've never played, and I love that. It's something I've always been striving to get to. Seeing what Third Coast Percussion had done with these pieces was magical.”
There is a heady telepathy among the quartet, who approach the compositions with grace, clarity and dexterity.— Siobhán Kane, The Irish Times —
Immersive, ambient sounds are preserved in a state-of-the-art recording here. . . This disc is absolutely beautiful; the recording itself is one of the finest to come my way, the music revelatory.— Colin Clarke, Fanfare —
TCP unapologetically tears through hemiola after hemiola without the slightest pause or reservation, flawlessly shredding the intricate, kaleidoscopic patterns with virtuosic fluidity.— Anne Goldberg-Baldwin, I Care If You Listen —
There’s an element of tidal fury to Fields: for every high -energy moment, there is soon a lower energy pause for the listener to ruminate on things and prepare for more…— Carl Anka, NME —
...[Hynes's] penchant for woozy melodies and lush synth textures exerts itself, blending seamlessly with percussion that rings and gurgles seductively...— Peter Margasak, Downbeat —