Frank Denyer - Fired City (2002)

Like avant-garde outcast Harry Partch, Frank Denyer often scores his works for bizarre combinations of instruments ("Quick, Quick, The Tamberan Is Coming," for example, calls for four bass flutes) and uses instruments of his own creation. And like Partch, Denyer incorporates a variety of types of non-Western music into an odd outsider sound that's simultaneously like all of them and none of them. The frequent pitch sliding and ornamentation on "The Hanged Fiddler," for instance, recall traditional Japanese music (which Denyer has studied extensively), though Denyer's use of phrasing is distinctly his. Elsewhere, Denyer enjoys using extreme differences in register (a typical Denyer piece might call for piccolo along with contrabass saxophone) and heft (the breathy flute meanderings on "Resonances of Ancient Sins" are often interrupted by blasts of tuba and the sound of Elizabeth Hall slapping a wooden box). But the most important feature of this fine collection of Denyer's work is his unusual and lyrical approach to melody, which has as much to do with his studies of non-Western musics as his connections to the avant-garde.