”

Jessie Montgomery’s Study No 1 erupts cautiously, with tom tom rolls moving in slow gradations  and instruments coming in and out of focus before individual ricochets and beating patterns are revealed. An electric precision rings from TCP’s striking of the drum rims, balancing persistent, unforgiving rhythmic complexity with melty twinges created by crotales sliding across drumheads toward the end.

While workshopping Study No 1, Montgomery brought excerpts from her existing works to the quartet in an effort to experiment with the timbral possibilities of percussion. Appearing here in an arrangement by Third Coast Percussion member Sean Conners, her In Color Suite (originally for tuba and string quartet) combines melodica with bowed marimba to create an unearthly atmosphere of thick, twangy sound that later transforms into the rattle of a wooden rasp drawn across the end of the vibraphone.”