David Lang: Writing on Water

This thrilling album showcases some of Lang’s most urgent, rhythmically complex music performed by an incredible ensemble lineup: the London Sinfonietta, Crash Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound and more. The title track, “Writing on Water”, sets a scintillating patchwork libretto that pieces together literary descriptions of shipwrecks and drowning in its commemoration of the Battle of Trafalgar. Lang’s Nyman-like vocal music lurches and pitches amid a bustling instrumental accompaniment that combines electric guitar and orchestra. The incessantly exciting “Forced March” is a series of relentless collisions between melody and rhythm, while “Increase” combines complex musical patterns and contrasting moods to hypnotic effect.