Jess Dandy, Roderick Chadwick, Chroma - Look How Brightly: Chamber Music by Alex Mills (2026) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. Look how brightly the universe shines!
02. Strings Attached
03. BARDO: I.
04. BARDO: II.
05. Release me
06. I love you, my darkness
07. Scapegoat
08. Fragment
09. Dirge for the Living: I.
10. Dirge for the Living: II.
11. Dirge for the Living: III.
12. One is Fun

Look how brightly offers a portrait of Alex Mills’ music from the past decade: ten works, many closely linked to moments of change, loss, ritual and renewal, together telling what feels like an intimate, personal story – almost, as Nico Muhly writes in the booklet, a sequence of musical diary entries. Across pieces for strings, voice, piano, percussion and tape, including three specially written for contralto Jess Dandy, familiar materials are quietly transformed: patterns fracture and reform, stasis gives way to movement, and moments of unguarded lyricism emerge unexpectedly.

Those encountering Mills for the first time will find a compelling introduction to a composer whose music asks not for interpretation, but for attentive, inward listening – music that is ‘not meditative, but a meditation’.