The Spektral Quartet's Experiments in Living takes its title from the final work on the album, George Lewis' String Quartet 1.5: Experiments in Living (2016), and ultimately, from a concept originated by philosopher John Stuart Mill. The "experimental" aspect consists of two factors. First, the program contains various innovative contemporary works in its second half: there are pieces influenced by jazz, broader types of improvisation, and the electronic atomization of sound in Charmaine Lee's Spinals. Second, listeners can approach the compositions on the album in any order. Of course, this is possible with any album, especially in digital media, but here, there is a new wrinkle. Album buyers may purchase a tarot deck, custom-designed by artist øjeRum, that will enable them to "bring chance into the experience, and rely on your deep listening to build bridges -- literally -- between these polychromatic sound worlds." The more experimental works are balanced by three quartets at the beginning that provide a clear trajectory from the deeply Classical ethos of Brahms through the Schoenberg String Quartet No. 3, and the rather rare String Quartet of Ruth Crawford Seeger, following in Schoenberg's footsteps. However, the problems here are multiple. The individual performances by the Spektral Quartet are clean and quite expressive, but it's not clear what listeners are intended to get from the tarot card device. The designs don't seem connected to the music involved, and the cards, at $40 a deck, will be restricted to those with the budget for boutique purchases. It is said that "your listening experience will change profoundly based on the choices you make at each fork in the road," but the works on the second half of the program, while individually appealing, don't suggest connections of anything more than the broadest sort. There's nothing wrong with mixing repertory works with contemporary ones. Indeed, this probably occurs in the majority of string quartet concerts, but the apparatus here is both fuzzy and cumbersome.
© James Manheim /TiVo