(Whirring Marvels In) Consensus Reality is the new album by Eluvium – the renowned moniker of prolific modern composer, Matthew Robert Cooper. Taking initial inspirations from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and Richard Brautigan’s All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace, (Whirring Marvels) inherently deals both with humankind’s need for meaning, and the emergence of algorithms reflecting the feedback loops of humankind’s interactions with machines themselves. This complicated relationship that we have with technology, automations, and algorithms – and the influence they in turn have on shaping our image of the world – is the mechanized heart and soul of an album that almost instantly establishes itself as a peak in Eluvium’s inimitable catalog.

Some artists like to signal their pretension in a subtle way - James Murphy with his “Hello Steve Reich” remix of David Bowie’s “Love Is Lost”, for example. Others, however, just can’t help themselves. Chilly Gonzales (A.K.A Jason Beck) might be fall into the latter camp. His 2015 album, Chambers, has been in gestation since Solo Piano II, the sequel to the acclaimed - and innovatively named - Solo Piano I. This LP is similarly literally titled, as it is, in essence, a 12-track suite for a chamber ensemble - string quartet and piano, to be precise.
If you know anything about our man Gonzales, though, you'll know that things are never quite what they appear when he's around. All genres are permeable for this man: from the '90s indie-rock stylings of his first project Son to the Manic, and surreal rap of The Entertainist, he's pretty much tried it all…

Listening to just the first minute of Stephen Scott's "Rainbows, I" (the album's first track) will shatter your notion of what piano music should sound like. With a heavy nod to the minimalism of Steve Reich, Scott and his group of students from Colorado College created one of the most memorable and original compositions of bowed piano strings ever recorded. Here, the white and black keys are overshadowed by a handful of musicians crawling over the open-topped instrument, armed with Popsicle sticks glued with horsehair (the perfect bow for reaching into a grand's tight corners).

London-born, Berlin-based Rebecca Saunders, who turned 40 last year, is a composer enraptured by sound in the moment and manner of its creation. She's like a poet obsessed not just with the resonances of vowels or the textures of fricatives, but also with the strange in-betweens, where the strangeness of the sound blurs all possibility of conventional meaning.

Immortal Memory is a collaboration between vocalist Lisa Gerrard and Irish composer Patrick Cassidy. Billed as a cycle of life and death and rebirth, Immortal Memory is better described as an orphaned film score. Cassidy's warm arrangements allow the former Dead Can Dance singer to step out of the dark medieval world that she's called home for nearly 20 years – though there is much of that world within these castle walls – and focus on the simplicity of love, faith, and loss with a grace that's bereft of the icy perfection of her previous work. Gerrard, whose voice has aged like the finest oak, displays an almost supernatural mastery of the material. Her effortless contralto wraps itself around the ten Gaelic, Latin, and Aramaic spirituals like an evening prayer, making each stunning entrance the equivalent of audio comfort food.

Wonderfull album of eccentric, minimal contemporary pop ambience from this classically trained French duo. Docteur Labus was the fourth album they made together in 1988 for the modern dance theater piece by Jean-Claude Galotta. Absolutely great music, sometimes high energy, sometimes quite lyrical.

The Danish DJ, composer and producer Katrine Ring is one of the few DJs at the international level who has specialized in classical music. On this album she remixes and deconstructs a number of chamber concertos by the composer Vagn Holmboe in a musical game of hide-and-seek that breathes new life into the works in a constant play of memory and recognition. The original recordings by the Danish National Chamber Orchestra and the conductor Hannu Koivula are included as a bonus CD.

Roger Eno is a British composer and musician whose distinctive style as a recording artist has attracted a cult following. Last year he made his debut on DG with Mixing Colours, his first duo album with his brother, Brian, which was released to great acclaim. The Turning Year allows the listener to step through Roger Eno’s looking-glass, filled with glimpses of pastoral scenes and free-flowing, affecting compositions. These pieces are exquisitely realised by Eno as pianist and he is joined on some tracks by the lauded German string ensemble Scoring Berlin. With a blend of recent compositions and live favourites from Eno’s concert repertoire, the album offers a comprehensive presentation of the composer’s solo work.

Asked to sum up how he would characterize his two String Quartets - written in a neoclassical style and influenced by the sound world of Bruckner and Schoenberg - Michael Finnissy answered, rich and chewy! In 2011 Michael Finnissy created a daring new interpretation of Mozart's Requiem. To influence his completion of the parts left missing after the 18th century composers death he said ""I imagined Mozart in the present day, working to complete the Requiem, looking back across the centuries which have passed since his death.

Norwegian composer Ole-Henrik Moe is just as happy to be referred to by his coincidentally sonically consonant initials – OHM – and Rune Grammophon's two-CD set, Ole-Henrik Moe: Ciaconna – 3 Persephone Perceptions, consists of two very long solo violin works performed by Moe's wife, violinist Kari Rønnekleiv. A one-time student of Xenakis, Moe is a very busy composer whose extensive work ranges from collaborations with the Arditti String Quartet and playing in jazz groups as violinist to his involvement in electro-acoustic projects like Deathprod and the Norwegian nouveaux-prog band Motorpsycho.

Dark, emotional, and exquisitely beautiful, David Lang's new CD, Elevated, has premiere recordings of 3 recent works. Taken together, these pieces create a world in which consonance fights dissonance, hope struggles against hopelessness, and simple melodies are constantly beset by gravity, weight, and decay.

The ELISION Ensemble (often referred to as simply ELISION) is a chamber ensemble specialising in contemporary classical music, concentrating on the creation and presentation of new works. The ensemble comprises a core of around 20 virtuoso musicians from Australia and around the world.

Stephan Moccio, acclaimed composer/producer (Miley Cyrus, Celine Dion, The Weeknd), returns to his classical roots and the piano. Classical discipline combined with his pop songwriting sensitivities gives him a unique edge. Organic, raw and honest, the album explores profound themes like love, relationships, aging. Conveying emotion without words, he creates melodies that course through delicately wrought compositions, revealing a more sensual and vulnerable side of this multi-faceted artist.

February 26, 2020, 10 years after the passing of musician Nujabes. Even though a long time has passed, the number of listeners around the world who desire the music of Nujabes continues to grow. During this turbulent world, Nujabes' label, Hydeout Productions, which is still in charge of the band, asked Haruka Nakamura to make a tribute album to mark the 10-year anniversary of his death, saying, 'I want you to move forward 10 years as time stands still.'