Coming April 25 on Cantaloupe Music:

The Anzû Quartet’s upcoming album, adjust, marks the quartet’s first full-length studio release of premiere recordings of works by two American/Canadian-American composers, Ken Thomson and Anna Webber. Thomson, whose music has been described as “eclectic and irresistibly warm” by NPR, and Webber, who journalist Peter Margasak described as “one of the most creative artists of the current century,” are widely lauded for their substantial bodies of unique work in the cracks between improvised music and contemporary composition. The Anzû Quartet is the ideal complement to these composers and their iconoclastic voices.

Contemporary music specialists known for their regular performances with notable ensembles including the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Mivos Quartet and Eighth Blackbird, the musicians of the Anzû Quartet have dedicated themselves to commissioning and championing the music of their time; the recordings on adjust are exemplary of this passion and purpose.

The two compositions on this album are both substantial, multi-movement works composed for the Anzû Quartet between 2019 and 2022. Thomson’s “Uneasy” is a relentless, kinetic, and emotive composition reflecting the pace and anxieties of modern life. Webber’s “adjust” explores the liminal space between classical contemporary music and experimental jazz, employing a blend of compositional approaches ranging from structured improvisation to stringently notated chamber music with meticulously constructed throughlines. She expertly blends timbres of prepared piano with clarinet multiphonics, quarter tones and extended string techniques.

Both works highlight the Anzû Quartet’s prowess as interpreters and performers of demanding, modern repertoire, and fulfill Anzû’s mission of commissioning and promoting new repertoire for the instrumentation of Messiaen’s elemental “Quartet for the End of Time.”

The Anzû Quartet has assembled a cohort of industry leaders to work on this project and ensure its success. The recordings featured on this album were tracked at The Bunker Studio in Brooklyn, NY and 4Tune Studios in Vienna, Austria, and will be mixed by multiple Grammy nominee Mike Tierney (Alarm Will Sound, WildUp, Mivos Quartet, Chris Cerrone) and mastered by multiple Grammy award-winning engineer Andreas Meyer (Hilary Hahn, Joshua Bell, Yo-Yo Ma, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Los Angeles Philharmonic).