In college, I tried to buy an album every week, despite having only $15-20 per week of spending money (and this was NYC) and invariably counting my pennies on Sunday to scrounge up enough for a Hungry Mac’s burger and fries. Having come from Signal Mountain, TN to Manhattan, there were so many new tunes to discover. It was, and still is, a regular source of pleasure I put up there with, well, you probably know, what those pleasures are. I am always on the hunt for new, unique sounds, usually in the category (my own making) of “alchemy.”  This is the mixing, combining, integrating of instruments, styles, genres, etc to make new sounds precious to the ear.

Michael Gordon fits this category. He’s a contemporary composer of, well, some fusion of classical instruments into a penetrating percussive tone and electronica type beats. I have two of his CDs, Weather and Decasia. I also saw a dance piece entitled Natural Selection to one of the cuts off Weather this summer performed by the Keigwin Dance Co at the Joyce Theatre in NYC. Any description I might give of Gordon’s music would probably ruin your initial listening experience, so I will only use one word: Pulsating. Think of a pulsar in space (there’s a nice visual rendition at Wikipedia). From what little I’ve gathered, Gordon is pretty well known around NYC but I’m not so sure about anywhere else. His Wiki entry states that he is a co-founder of the Bang on a Can Festival. That’s probably as good a place as any to start if you’re interested. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gordon_(composer)

Of the two CDs, I’d start wtih Decasia. Put on an artsy coat and thin black tie, crank it up, get in front of your speakers, and be that guy in those old Maxell commercials. Repeat, with headphones.