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.

The album’s three works, all world-premiere recordings, represent Hynes’s debut on disc as a classical composer. In Perfectly Voiceless, Philip Glass-style minimalism gives way to a catchy pop melody. There Was Nothing blends synthesizer sounds with bowed mallet percussion instruments and moments of meditative lyricism recall the music of Lou Harrison. The expressive harmonies within the gauzy textures of For All Its Fury point to Hynes’ love of Debussy.

Third Coast arranged Hynes’ music for its immense collection of diverse instruments and performed them on stage with the Hubbard Street dancers in Chicago and on tour. The Los Angeles Times praised Hynes’ “lush score” and Third Coast’s ability to summon “otherworldly sounds from a multitude of idiophones, drums and other devices.” Chicago’s New City Stage applauded Third Coast’s “extraordinary performance” and “ceaseless river of sound.”

https://cedillerecords.lnk.to/lE48rfVQCA

Music featured:
For All Its Fury: Coil by Devonté Hynes
Album artwork by Sonnenzimmer
Photography by Stephanie Bassos and Timothy Burkhart of People vs. Places
Video by No Dancing Productions
Additional footage generously provided by Four/Ten Media