Descansos, past (Cold Blue CB0021)
“Jim Fox’s latest piece [Descansos, past] inhabits the same haunted soundscape as his 2004 release The City The Wind Swept Away—the unconventional scoring (pizzicato bass and nine bowed cellos) produces a sort of lush bleakness that evokes the windswept open spaces of the American West. Perhaps Descansos evokes the strange roadside memorials that gave Fox his title, but to these Eastern ears, it is reminiscent of the brooding lyricism of England’s Gavin Bryars. This is a music that seems to linger even after the recording itself has ended." —John Schaefer, WNYC, New Sounds
"Easily the most beautiful thing I heard all week, Fox's haunting memorial for his friend, composer/performer John Kuhlman (1954-1996), scored for four cellos and double bass is deep on so many levels. It's featured on a CD-single offering only 15 minutes of music, but you won't want to listen to anything for a while after you've heard this." —Frank J. Oteri, NewMusicBox (American Music Center)
"Descansos, past practices yet another kind of soft-grained, southern Californian austerity. Slow-moving and very simple, this harks back to the folky ennui of John Lurie's soundtracks for string quartet, like his score for Stranger Than Paradise. The miking gives the solo strings almost orchestral presence, and the returning bass pizzicatos possibly hint at jazz. Descansos, past is harmonically driven, and so Fox's style counts as the most obviously traditional of the three. But his piece ends in mid-sentence, emphasizing the fragmentary, quasi-improv character and showing that he—unlike so many composers nowadays—knows exactly when to stop." —Arved Ashby, Gramophone
"Descansos, past also deals with memory, but its sense of loss is sharper, more immediate. … this is a work of noble mourning; its mood is sombre and its heavy, halting ‘tread’ connotes funereal footfalls (in fact it was written in 2004 in memory of the musician John Kuhlman). Against a backdrop of bass pizzicatos, the cello choir intermittently intones slow homophonic phrases—fragments that one might hear as the remnants of some long-forgotten chorale. Thanks to playing that is warm toned, full-bodied and unerringly precise, the string textures glow darkly and their colors deepen the pervasive mood of dignified reflection and restraint." —Christopher Ballantine, International Record Review
"Jim Fox's haunting Descansos, past is a single, 15-minute work scored for pizzicato double bass and nine bowed cellos. … The piece is reminiscent of a smaller-scale Górecki's Third Symphony—the cellos continually shifting harmonic movement evokes clouds passing by or sand blowing in the desert. The result is sound that is somber without being morose—a haunting threnody, even if it is not billed as such.
"The performances are excellent all round. The cello ensemble's playing and intonation are splendid throughout this piece, which has them using the entire range of their instrument, including some difficult fingerings and artificial harmonics. Bassist Barry Newton provides rock-solid underpinning for the cellists to play over. He tackles the bass solo passages with considerable artistry, and his execution of the double-stops and arpeggiated chords—some of which are technically taxing—is first-rate. … Descansos, past is well worth a listen." —Chris Kosky, Double Bassist magazine
"Another beautiful release from the Cold Blue label ... The rich textures and dark moodiness of this piece envelope you in a full-body experience, the deep tones being felt on the skin at the same time as they are heard. Fox has achieved a wonderfully rich balance of instruments while at the same time maintaining good compositional cohesion throughout, succeeding in a combination of instruments that is far more challenging than would be expected. A wonderful and invigorating experience." —Randy Raine-Reisch, Musicworks (Canada)
"Descansos, past sounds like the sweetest dirge ever, where the pain for loss seems to be diluted in serene recollections. … the 15-minute composition develops around the dialogue of solemn, repetitive bass picking, and the driving power of the strings, literally lifting the piece to the sky. As with his previous ep, The City the Wind Swept Away, Fox has written some painfully emotional music, and I envy the sage outlook on living its suggests.." —Eugenio Maggi, Chain D.L.K. (Italy)
"Composed in memory of composer John Kuhlman, Fox's haunting Descansos, past is performed by Barry Newton on double-bass and four cellists (performing nine parts), though the work's tonal range finds the latter often sounding like a conventional string ensemble. Permeated by a tender sadness, the 15-minute elegy is reminiscent, not only in arrangement but in its meditative and pensive, even funereal, tone, of Gavin Bryars' By the Vaar, his own double bass and strings composition (performed by Charlie Haden on Bryars' Farewell to Philosophy); Newton is often featured solo and it's during these moments that his pizzicato playing most recalls Haden's, an association, however, that does nothing to diminish the poignancy of Fox's piece." —Ron Schepper, Signal to Noise (summer ’05) Textura (May ‘05)
"Dedicated to the late composer/performer John Kuhlman, Descansos, past is a short composition for double bass and superimposed cellos that alternates a sense of poignant regret … with powerful playing by bassist Barry Newton, who at decent listening volume is able, through sheer timbral intensity, to solicit some serious glass shaking in the living room. Steering clear of sugary sentimentalism, Fox's concise statements, performed superbly by cellists Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick, Jessica Catron, Aniela Perry and Rachel Arnold, describe a sober celebration whose orchestral flavor is enriched by rewarding aural poetry, like an inscription on a tombstone to be read with a faint smile instead of tear-stained eyes."—Massimo Ricci, Paris Transatlantic
"Jim Fox’s piece Descansos, Past (Cold Blue) is an utterly beautiful, aching work; a meditation on journey and loss, scored for cellos and solo double bass. Fox has a remarkable ability to balance darkness and light in his music; what seems at first a state of calm questioning might, as this work unfolds, open up the listener to a deeper sense of the awe and mystery at the heart of sound and thought. " —Kevin Macneil Brown, "Back for More" (Kevin Macneil Brown's six most memorable recordings of 2005), Dusted magazine
"… immediately appealing … a requiem-like piece for double bass (always plucked) and an ensemble of four cellos (always bowed), multiplied by overdubbing into a choir of nine. The plucked bass notes would suggest jazz were it not for their hypnotic obsessiveness, like the tolling of bells. The bowed cello chords reach from the instruments’ rich lower registers to their keening uppermost reaches. If Samuel Barber had been born a half century later as a forward-looking resident of the West Coast, his Adagio for Strings might have sounded a lot like Jim Fox’s Descansos, past." —Raymond Tuttle, Classical.Net
"Descanso, past majestically gives tribute to the memory of composer/performer John Kuhlman. . . . This is some really beautiful music. The pizzicato bass and the bowed cellos hold an intense dialog, the bass supporting the strings while they play sustained chords and melodies or the strings backing up the bass while he solos." —David Beardsley, Downtown Music Gallery Newsletter
"The music is full of shattering stillness and stark beauty. What is evident is the sparkling warmth it evokes. The layers are presented gradually and eventually, as the 15-minute piece comes to a close, you're left with something that is left in your head. Its stillness is consuming and grand." —Tom Sekowski, Gaz-Eta (Poland)
". . . a nice, intimate piece. . ." —Vital Weekly (The Netherlands)
"Jim Fox is known for works that tend toward the enigmatic and moody while retaining an arresting pellucidity and lyrical grace. Descansos, past, a 15-minute-long composition for pizzicato double bass solo and a "choir" of bowed cellos, fulfills the alluring tonal possibilities inherent in such an ensemble, and also manages to unfold within a gently narrative arc that is unusual in contemporary composition.
"Descansos are a part of Latino culture in the Southwestern U.S. Roadside shrines made up of crosses, flowers, everyday objects, and painted words, they mark with honest and heart-felt expression the actual geographical places of sudden, accidental death. Indeed, the word descansos itself implies an interrupted journey. In the light and shadow of such a concept, it should come as no surprise that this work is elegiac; written in memory of John Kuhlman, a fellow composer and friend of Fox.
"The work begins with a quiet lushness, the bass murmuring gently with a single repeated note while the strings rise slowly to a warm, lyrical, chordal melody. Soon, however, the bass and cellos begin a sort of question and answer; the bass restless and rumbling, questing; the cellos, arrayed to exploit their full range—from mellow low notes to highest harmonic-induced haze—offering a sort of balm. Near the halfway point, the double bass takes over, with a rhythmic, troubled -yet-gentle cadenza that is, in its calm passion, reminiscent of one of Jimmy Garrison’s solos with the John Coltrane Quartet. When the string choir returns, things have turned around: The bass now seems serene, the cellos sing with a new dissonance.
"The end of the piece is starkly beautiful. Once more the bass rumbles alone, but with a resonance almost like slow-motion bells. Then, a hushed and consonant answer from the bowed strings that sounds like an arrival—a penitent and graceful melody in dignified harmonies that hints at the resigned gravity of a late Beethoven Quartet. And then the piece ends abruptly; the journey is interrupted.
"Comparisons might be made to works for similar ensembles by Arvo Part and Gavin Bryars. And the dark tonal colors here are similar to those to be found in, for example, Part’s Cantus In Memory Of Benjamin Britten or Bryars’ By The Vaar. But Descansos, past has a sense of openness all its own, with moments of silence at its interstices, letting in both space and light." —Kevin Macneil Brown, Dusted Magazine
"It is a somber and moody piece, very similar at times to a classical elegy, and at other times, while not cheery or upbeat, the music heads into more minimal and sparse impressionistic territory so that the mood, while desolate, is not mournful or morbid. Regardless of the mood of the music at any one instance on the recording, the beauty of the cellos is self-evident, and Newton's bass work is evocative and nuanced. As with the other Cold Blue Music EPs I've reviewed, engineering and production are sterling and the accompanying digipack artwork displays an eye for uncommon aesthetics. Covers of Cold Blue Music releases are, basically, true artwork and Descanos, past does not break from that tradition.
"Moving from solo double bass passages that are propelled by thumping notes that resonate with anger and grief at the loss of a loved one, the music can then shift into a sensitive quasi-adagio in which the massed cellos weave a delicate sad melody while the solitary bass anchors the emotion with sparse yet powerful plucked notes. Like the lonely and forlorn landscapes on the front and back of the CD case, the music contained within speaks of human emptiness and loss that sits beside the beauty and warmth of fond remembrance. … For gray-sky days and dark nights of the soul, Descanos, past will fill the emptiness in your soul with a sense that you are not alone in your pain. Highly recommended." —Bill Binkelman, Wind and Wire
"Descansos, past, for cello quartet and double bass, speaks a very slow romantic minimalist dialect, often with dark, moody harmonies. Despite its relentlessly subdued mood, low register and slow pace, it is creative enough to hold interest." —American Record Guide
"A peculiar world, with eerie yet wondrous landscapes, as well as zones of atemporal solitude." —Amazing Sounds (Spain)
"Mysterious and delicately introspective…" —Peter Thelan, Exposé magazine
"Thinking about the records I liked best in 2005, I can’t help but remember the handful that had something--a strange beauty, a sense of mystery, an enigmatic energy perhaps—that drew me in to listen again and again. … Jim Fox’s piece Descansos, past (Cold Blue) is an utterly beautiful, aching work; a meditation on journey and loss, scored for cellos and solo double bass. Fox has a remarkable ability to balance darkness and light in his music; what seems at first a state of calm questioning might, as this work unfolds, open up the listener to a deeper sense of the awe and mystery at the heart of sound and thought." —Kevin Macneil Brown, Dusted Magazine (from "Back for More," KMB's "most memorable recordings of 2005")
"'Descanso' is Spanish for 'rest,' 'peace and quiet' and those words give a rough description of the music on this CD single. Newton’s strong, stately bass supports and departs from the able cellos, and the whole adds up to austere beauty. This platter does suggest a place of calm, but the emotions connected with lamentation, penitence and sorrow are also in play here. A fine record is the result." —Richard Grooms, The Improvisor
“Beautiful and evocative work . . . very atmospheric music.” —John Schaefer, WNYC, New Sounds
"Though just under 23 minutes, The City and Wind Swept Away, performed by a small ensemble of trombones, piano, violins, viola and cello, seems to linger in the air (and the ear) much longer. Delicate and open throughout, it seems to encourage a state of nostalgia in the listener." —Molly Sheridan, NewMusicBox (American Music Center)
"Music that . . . feels as if it could go on endlessly . . . music that comes from the classical tradition, but that feels like it belongs somewhere other than the concert hall, . . . texturally rich, meticulously crafted and delicately beautiful." —Dusted
"The writing for trombones and strings connotes the misshapen fragments of some organ chorale, immensely slowed down, blown on the wind from afar; meanwhile the piano steadily picks out repeated notes, as if the simulation of some slow pealing of bells. Part of the pleasure of the piece is in noting how these sounds mutate, gradually, unpredictably, and in tracking the subtlest shifts in register, color, weight and momentum. So quiet and eventless is the terrain that any change can startle: as happens when the ‘bells’ momentarily fall silent, then resume in a glorious coda-like transfiguration in which everything, and nothing, has changed. As we know from the music of Feldman, this kind of attentiveness to the integrity of slowly passing sound events can be a strangely moving experience. It is so here." —Christopher Ballantine, Int’l Record Review (UK)
"... bleak, austere, even sad, but compellingly beautiful. It could go on forever." —Richard Friedman, Shuffle Boil
"The 23-minute piece is a drifting and immensely beautiful journey at the heart of night. Be it driven by the minimal, yet solemn piano lines, or shivering with the string sounds, the track has both a strong, hypnotizing coherence and a spacious texture, leaving room for your mind to wander and fill it every time with new feelings. I've listened to it often while reading McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses, and it was perfect to evoke those sad and majestic landscapes." —Eugenio Maggi, Chain D.L.K. (Italy)
"Jim Fox . . . reaches great heights. Four trombones and a string quartet, alternating and superimposed, ride on the line entrusted to the piano. The impression is of a certain motionlessness . . . at any particular moment, the result is very interesting, and the music is very pleasing to listen to. I am sure that The City the Wind Swept Away will not disappoint those who liked the excellent Last Things from 2000, whose intimate blue-night tonality is taken up again here." —Sands-Zine (Italy)
"Beautifully recorded music with suitably artistic packaging . . . The City the Wind Swept Away is a beautiful, light instrumental presentation. . . . this is definitely music worth spending time with." —Randy Raine-Reusch, MusicWorks
"Is music, at its most ghostly, ours? Enter the snowy quietness of fate: Jim Fox's gorgeously titled The City the Wind Swept Away prepares for a Fest der Darstellung, a commemoration of places we seem to keep in a corner, where the precious remain, only to be recalled when necessary. … captivating and truly refreshing. … The music infers a fragile ecosystem that embraces a metaphoric complexity; while observing the landscape, we won’t remain the same." —ei magazine
"It is a beautiful suite of a soft, romantic, magic and deliberate style . . .The music presents a melancholy hue." —Amazing Sounds (Spain)
"This is an uninterruptedly slow and quiet work, dominated by shifting and repeated patterns of a few notes from the piano—imagine a music box on its last legs . . . Long held notes in the strings and brass support the piano part, creating an atmosphere that is both ethereal and oppressive." —RaymondTuttle, ClassicalNet
"The sound of the trombone and bass trombone add a haunting, dark effect to the music . . . the main instrument is the piano however, and everything swirls around it—desolate music, or rather the music of desolate places—maybe the sound happening when a city is indeed swept away by the wind." —Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly (Netherlands)
"Keening string harmonies and soft trombone rumbles drift through the piece’s desolate expanses with Bryan Pezzone’s sparse piano playing the delicate thread, his triads forming a pensive pendulum. There’s a static quality to Fox’s piece while, at the same time, an inexorable if glacial impetus nudges it forward. The sparseness of the instrumentation helps create the impression of emptiness, an impression reinforced by the work’s title." —Ron Schepper, Textura and Stylus (UK)
"Jim Fox’s gorgeous meditation for trombones, strings, and piano." —Andrew Ford, Australian Financial Review
"Jim Fox's new ep is a compelling instrumental track . . . As with his last CD, the tone is meditative, quiet, and highly reflective . . . not unlike the groundbreaking work Brian Eno did with Harold Budd . . . it's another favorable notch in Fox's growing catalog of valid sonic experiments." —Exposé
"Characterized by quietude . . . the melodic theme gently lifts off with a piano, to be later backed by deeper and lower reverberating trombone tones. The composition floats on the selective, gentle, and calm moods it evokes. Meditative and restful, it makes a great listening and a potential immersion into innumerable things. More a 'classical' than an ambient piece, it deserves full merit for its virtues, leaving you absorbed yet emotionally alert after each listen." — Erkki Luuk, SONOMU
"Tranquil piano drifts amidst a misty manifestation of smoothly sighing classical strings. As the piece progresses, the piano settles into a dominant position, pensively dripping off notes with a somber laziness while allowing the strings to circle at the composition's periphery like birds keeping tabs on an abandoned harvest crop. Hiding in the mix, the trombones whisper like spectral sentries. Sparsely structured, this elegant music suitably evokes the notion of urban aspects wafted away from a city, stretching like a stately breeze over outlying agricultural regions." —Sonic Curiosity
"In turns beautiful, expressive, contemplative and haunting, this is music that slows the listener's world to a crawl; he is thus free to explore all its wonders, both its lights, shimmering and bright, and its shadows, creeping intently over the surfaces of things. Recommended." —Incursion Music Review (Canada)
". . . a kind of warm, glistening atmosphere that stirs memories of the Los Angeles night. ... chamber music that goes softly into the ear without putting it to sleep."—Fanfare
"Fox's Between the Wheels deposits a sparse melody over tremolo string carpeting—of the three quintets it is the piece with the most personal approach." —All-Music Guide
"A mysterious sustained-tremoli work . . . delicate music . . . There's a high whispering violin harmonic reminiscent of Crumb's Night of the Full Moons, and here the timbre is explored fully." —21st-Century Music magazine
"Quiet and unashamedly tonal writing . . . out of time, in a way." —Signal to Noise
"A rarefied atmosphere and great subtlety in the interweaving of the structure." —Il Manifesto (Italy)
"Fox presents a plangent clarinet melody: nearly immobile, it rises from the sound of the player's breath and seems to want to disappear back into it, yet succeeds in stirring into life a series of pulsating string tremolos." —International Record Review
"An enveloping mood of quietness, a pensive and subdued lyricism." —Blow Up (Italy)
"Fox’s gentle 'Between the Wheels' shows that strings can create a hovering, birdlike atmosphere. ... a success." —Richrd Grooms, The Improvisor
"Music that could as easily give meaning to the long lanes of palms lining the streets of Los Angeles, swaying in the hot breeze of the Southern California nights. Aglow with the lights of the city, this music could accompany us anywhere." —I Heard a Noise webzine (Romania)
" . . . a stunning composition by Jim Fox for piano accompanied by the most subtle contributions on electric guitar and cello; a remarkable expression of subtlety and sadness." —Incursion Music Review (Canada)
"Fox's Appearance of Red has the spiritual uplift of the last movement of Crumb's Music for a Summer Evening coupled with a meditative minimalist's sensibility, a fine sense of line, and growing intimations of unease." —21st-Century Music magazine
"Electric guitar, piano, and cello create a pedal and a slow pealing figure, along with an inner timbre that grows in tension and vividness." —International Record Review
"Each of these thirteen aural environments [on Cold Blue CB0008] has its own mystery, its own Minotaur's maze to escape from, or not, as your preference may be. Strongly recommended." —Fanfare
Among Simple Shadows (on Dancing on Water, music of Fox, Daniel Lentz, Peter Garland, Michael Jon Fink, Rick Cox, Michael Byron, Cold Blue CB0005)
"Fox's lovely, measured, ritual soul-music finds Walker and Pezzone in consort with Smith to marvelous effect." —21st-Century Music magazine
"Expansive impressionism . . . Fox understands the empathy in Walker's playing. Fox usually works with quiet, beautifully ominous nightscapes and slow-creeping tonalities, and his Among Simple Shadows is no exception. Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith blows a transparent, hushed last-post of a tune, which Walker shadows like the last hum resonating from the throat of a gospel bass. Bryan Pezzone's piano flaps weightlessly in the wind and casts anxious repeating clots of melody after the mingled brass and woodwind as they move through a dark-blue spectrum of emotions from quiet grief to indefinable hope." —Misfit City (UK)
". . . Jim Fox's meditation Among Simple Shadows, affirming his unique voice and compositional charm." —Incursion Music Review (Canada)
" . . . an austere, ethereal experience." — The Wire
". . . suffused with a beautiful sadness. . . . with its quietly powerful atmospheres, it compelled me to pay close attention. . . . I recommend this CD with enthusiasm." — Fanfare
". . . sounds that seem to echo across a timeless void. Imagine a view of the sky on a brilliantly clear night, from an uninhabited part of the world." —International Record Review
". . . a perfect example of music without stylistic barriers." —Deep Listenings magazine (Italy)
"Cosmological and theological questions enter the listener’s ear as if uttered by one’s lover while soundscapes build an uncertain atmosphere that wavers between cosmic void and ghostly presence. Strangely enticing . . . intimate, soft, fragmented. . . . Fox achieves an impressive balance between delicate and troubled." —All-Music Guide
"‘Hypnotic’ is a word often used as a euphemism for ‘sleep-inducing,’ but if you sleep through The Copy of the Drawing, you will miss some chillingly beautiful atmospheres. Very impressive stuff!" —ClassicalNet
"Stunning work." —Incursion Music Review (Canada)
"Most evocative and atmospheric . . . The tenor and spirit of this composition may be likened to those of Budd and perhaps Brian Eno . . . It shares with them a mysterious quality and a gentle, soothing character. The otherworldly nature of the piece is heightened by almost whispered readings by Janyce Collins . . . the work is dreamlike, seemingly without beginning or end. . . . it appears to exist outside of the realm of time." —Dean Suzuki, San Francisco Bay Guardian
"The Copy of the Drawing is a strange electronic world in which one of the elements is a reading of excerpts from strange letters written to an observatory. It’s a great atmosphere, a night music, a huge expanse of dark, empty sky. Last Things is deep and dark, moody and dreamlike, a geologically paced call-and-response between bass clarinet and pedal steel guitar, with a kind of basso profundo on the low end of the piano. As the music cycles, we are surely in a profound world. When all elements finally come together at the very end, it is an astounding musical pay-off, as dramatic as the last chords of a Beethoven symphony, but in a whole other world of understatement and subtlety." —Carl Stone
"This is music that sounds like it was made in California—not the California of celluloid freeway madness, but rather that California of cool northern beaches or the Mojave Desert as seen in the stark intimacy of Joshua Tree or even the remembered despair of the landscape around Donner Pass. This is a music of honesty, seductive and delicate yet strong and dark." — Daniel Lentz
"The words and sounds conjure up the impression of vast space, of boundless places with no beginning and no end. It is also wonderful music of the night, suffused with air, light, and darkness. It’s all more than enough to make this the disc of the year." —Blow Up magazine (Italy)
"The artist uses a wide variety of musical elements to create atmospheres full of a soft energy. The successive sonic textures take us step by step into an unexplored terrain." —Amazing Sounds
". . . slow-moving, implicatory, atmospheric and deliciously disturbing . . . Like floodwater in the night. . . . with a beautifully cool eroticism . . Fox seems to be attempting to reconcile the cosmological with the personal, as Collins' narration of astronomers' notes seem to take on revealingly intimate suggestions and to equate the paths of cosmic debris with those of people. . . . With Last Things itself, the sky is lowering. . . . Trapped between stooping sky and unquiet ground, we bear witness to a passionate, wordless pieta in which the dominant instrumental voice—Marty Walker's brilliantly torturous bass clarinet—sounds famished. . . . When Last Things fades out, we've come to terms with the fearsome displacement and anxiety in Fox's California soundscapes. To such a degree that we're likely to have failed to notice that he's finally resolved the music with a chordal and dynamic shift so subtle as to almost escape notice—like life settling itself in." —Misfit City (U.K.)
"Two strong pieces make up this CD. In 'The Copy of the Drawing,' dream-shaped, almost formless musical clouds drift about in loose structures. Sketchy skeins of electronics add much to the color. Fox repeats semi-regular electronic figures which sound like the bass end of the inside of a piano. Collins whisper-recites … You can only hear parts of the spoken texts here, excerpts of excerpts. No text is provided, which only highlights the hallucinatory character of the piece. In effect it’s here for atmosphere since you can’t pick out what’s being said most of the time. The words are then natural companions to the instrumental musical clouds. The whole thing is somewhat like David Behrman’s gentle electronic works, sounding half-composed, half-improvised, but even more formless and unanchored. It’s haunting, very beautiful and—perhaps inevitably—fugitive. [In 'Last Things,'] below are strong repetitive rumblings from the bass end of a piano. Above are mournful lines from the bass clarinet seem to come from an unknowable ceremony. Middle range: pedal steel, electronics and glass guitars (whatever they are). A very resonant result comes out of all this. It sounds like something outside our world and time. The last few minutes build to a crescendo which only underscores the lamentation nature of the piece. A solid performance, restful and edgy." —Richard Grooms, The Improvisor
"A beautiful album, even for those who know nothing of this type of music." —Musicboom (Italy)
"Last Things is deeply alluring . . . of beauty and lonesome melancholy. It is seductive because of its highly evocative force of bringing up the star-spangled sky over the Wilson Observatory and the outer reaches of Mojave Desert with its endlessly repeated set of slightly changing vistas." —I Heard a Noise webzine (Romania)
"Both tracks exude an appealing sound world that is not only enveloping but haunting and rather eerie." —New Music Connoisseur magazine
"Both the title track and The Copy of the Drawing are quietly meditative . . . And both tracks exude an appealing sound world that is not only enveloping but haunting and rather eerie . . . eminently worthy of exploration for those keen on ambient West Coast and downtown New York idioms." —21st-Century Music magazine
"The Copy of the Drawing…Against the wash and pitch-bending by Fox, bright, tinkling synthesizer stabs reinforce the often-pensive dialogue, . . . Last Things…Marty Walker’s probing woodwind voice against a reverberating structure carries with it simultaneous characteristics of gigantic but fragile proportions. These two compositions serve as a clear reminder that ambient music is often much more compelling than audio wallpaper." —Exposé
"Lyrical and sensuous." —Fanfare
"A sad and graceful piece that basks in languid and deceptive simplicity." —Josef Woodard (from the liner notes )
Between the Wheels (on New Raptorial Moon, music by Fox and others, Raptoria Caam RCD 1001)
"A kind of warm, glistening atmosphere that stirs memories of the Los Angeles night." —Alex Ross, Fanfare
Ballad of a Gunfighter (a.k.a. The Gunfighter) filmscore (Citadel STC 77119)
"I am impressed. . . . Fox creates an unmistakably Western feel without using clichés . . . To me, the primary essence of this film genre is loneliness—imagine one little man silhouetted against the burning sky and an awe-inspiring horizon. The secondary essence is nostalgia. Fox captures both of these essences in his score. His somewhat pointillistic approach is not dissimilar to that of Ennio Morricone, the master of the Western film score. . . . I was pulled in by the strong and evocative material. . . . this is fine work. I am left with the desire to repeat my acquaintance with Fox's music." —Fanfare
"In a haunting, ghostly and lyrical manner, wailed by solo violin against delicate chimes and almost human-sounding electronic vocalization . . . Most of the score has the surreal quality of a desert mirage . . . The atmosphere is almost that of a horror western . . . this is surprisingly interesting." —Film Score Monthly
"A clarinet solo that is mournful, spare, and dramatic in its simplicity. Nuance is the name of the game." —Dean Suzuki, Option magazine
"This piece is beautiful, simple and elegantly performed. Fox's music of this period is quite unique…it's nice to have more of it recorded so excellently." —Sound Choice
"Jim Fox's effectively ethereal Solo for Single-Reed Instrument had the fewest notes on paper and one of the strongest impacts. Marty Walker played spare, finely detailed phrases on bass clarinet with elegant simplicity. . . . hypnotic . . . the work's pared-down gestures focus our listening minds on qualities other than standard virtuosity or melodic development." —Los Angeles Times
"Slow, sustained notes that could readily lend themselves to meditation as they gently faded to whispers. . .." —Ventura County Star
"Recognized for its clear identity as a focus for West Coast minimalism and post-minimalism. . . setting the highest standards in an area of musical endeavor where banal facility can be a danger." —The Wire
"I don't see the point in art that doesn't take any risks. Fortunately, Cold Blue does that for us, and does it all the time." —Harold Budd
"The label defines a certain ‘Southern California sound,’ uncluttered, evocative and unusual, with a wistful emotional edge." —L.A. Weekly
"A dependable source of contemporary music in the Minimalist and post-Minimalist genres. To heck with categories, though. Let’s just say that the label has the potential to be a deep well of wonder . . . Each release from Cold Blue is a letter from an alien civilization. . . . Cold Blue—how aptly named this label is!—is the soundtrack to today’s film of postmodern detachment, dread, and desire." —Fanfare
"Today's Cold Blue seems haunted by the same spirits as when it first began, compelled by the same desire to discover new musical forms, often with the most simple of gestures, but always with the most suggestive and nuanced of results." —Richard di Santo, Incursion Music Review
". . . an invaluable resource for what might be called part of the new ‘California School" . . . a label with a particular viewpoint and consummate good taste." —Joan LaBarbara
"Cold Blue offers a groove and a point of view. It's a Southern Californian meditative and hip spin on what's happening in new music." —21st Century Music magazine
"In 2000, to the astonishment and delight of those who treasured the old Cold Blue recordings, Fox decided to revive the label . . ." —New Music Box (American Music Center)
"Cold Blue discs—at least since the company's revival a couple of years ago—have tended to present music of stunning and poignant strangeness." —International Record Review
"I use the word 'gorgeous' when describing Cold Blue's recordings. And through Cold Blue I've become aware of a number of composers and their music who were not on my radar. This is definitely a CD catalog to watch." —Richard Friedman, Director of Other Minds
"Wandering trough the records released by the Venice, California-based label Cold Blue is like taking a stroll into some peaceful repository of living musical treasures. A repository that has summoned over the years some of the best representatives of the aptly named Southern California sound. . . . Listening to the music released by this South Californian label is like overhearing some joyful and delightful discussion between old friends celebrating their long-standing relationships in the realms of musical experimentation. You can feel privileged to be in their midst."—I Heard a Noise webzine (Romania)
"This is an intelligent independent label putting out well-designed and produced CDs of new music." —Rupert Loydell, Tangents (UK)
"Tailor-made to frustrate those obsessed with categories and labels . . . The label’s music is minimal without sounding rigorously systems-based; nor is its sound minimal in a way that suggests kinship with Glass and Reich beyond the inviting accessibility of their collective musics. Its uncluttered spaciousness evokes open plains and deserts, and, in spite of its name, the music eschews austerity for sensuality without lapsing into sentimentality or banality. With a lonely wistfulness at its core, its music is seductive and almost unfashionably pretty yet never cloying." —Ron Schepper, Textura and Stylus
"Among the elements commonly associated with the Cold Blue label is a propensity for inviting, even mysterious sonic beauty; an appeal to the senses that, strangely enough, seems to reach beyond sound." —Dusted webzine (2003)
"Cold Blue is a label that releases music that evokes the American west – not the smog and the stars of Los Angeles, where many of its artists are based, but the empty expanses of the deserts of southeastern California and New Mexico and of the woods of Alaska." —Dusted webzine (2004)
"Cold Blue . . . confirms itself as the star of a type of aestheticism that, at the moment, best represents that tiny piece of land enclosed by stretches of desert and rocky mountains, sweltering mesas and abandoned pueblos, insistent modernity and ancient cultures on their way to extinction. . . . Journeying along its trails is a good panacea for those who cannot go to sorcery school." —Sands-Zine (Italy)
"Cold Blue is an LA-based label, focussing on modern composition in the realms of 'West Coast minimalism' and 'post-minimalism.' Lately it has chosen the medium of CD EPs, (15 to 30 minute short duration releases), allowing the listener to concentrate on singular works w/ o the clutter. It is slowly evolving into one of the most important labels in the history of contemporary American composition." —from AB-CD catalog
"Since its relaunch slightly more than four years ago, Cold Blue Music has done sterling work in bringing to a wider public the music of a group of (mainly) Californian composers. The three latest releases, bringing the number of discs in the new Cold Blue catalogue to more than 20, are worthy contributions to a distinctive body of music—a virtual Cold Blue 'school'—forged in the wake of American musical experimentalism."—Christopher Ballantine, International Record Review
"Cold Blue Music has releaed a series of CD singles featuring beautifully recorded music with suitably artistic packaging. They seem to specialize in a yet-unnamed (to my knowledge) sub-genre of new music. . . . These works are designed for the discerning listener and share a common regard for well-placed sounds, yet each is distinct in its approach. . . . I recommend buying all of them, because this is definitely music worth spending time with." —Randy Raine-Reusch, MusicWorks
