This CD brings together an eclectic bunch of new solo music for a variety of percussion instruments performed by French player
Jean Geoffroy. The program notes describe the sophisticated theoretical processes behind each of the pieces, but the works are so aurally attractive that it would be easy to imagine that they were composed with only an intuitive attention to the visceral power and tonal beauty of the instruments in mind. Every work on the CD is striking in its inventiveness and in its virtuosic exploitation of the expressive powers of the percussion battery. Bruno Giner's Satz, Etude de Peaux No. 2, for five tom-toms, written within a narrow timbral range, intriguingly exploits the sounds of the skins and makes a fully engaging and satisfying piece. The works for solo keyboard, Philippe Hurel's Loops II pour vibraphone, Yoshihisa Taïra's Monodrame IV pour Vibraphone, and Isabel Urrutia's Mara-Mara pour Marimba are especially sensuous, even aurally voluptuous. José-Luis Campana's Nalu Kamusi, for a mixed group of instruments, including found instruments, is a sonic tour-de-force that leaves the listener wondering what kind of acoustic instruments could produce such eccentric and wonderful sounds.
Geoffroy, who is also known for his performances of Bach on the marimba, plays this appealing program with remarkable energy and nuance. The recording, made at the IRCAM studio in Paris, is extraordinarily clear and bright.