Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine cover

Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine

Composer
Released

This recording by L.A. chamber ensemble Wild Up is the latest in a series of Femenine recordings that are quickly cementing this buoyant and adventurous work into canon. Eastman, who died in obscurity in 1990, has recently been rediscovered and rehabilitated in dramatic fashion (the New York Times has used the term “Eastmania”). Femenine has been at the center of the renaissance, after the release of an original 1974 recording featuring the composer in 2016. The piece’s amiable minimalism, which gives significant latitude to its performers à la Terry Riley’s In C, is rendered with vigor and vitality here. It is not hard to draw a link between Eastman’s work and that of Sufjan Stevens, who once described “everything by Julius Eastman” as a formative influence. 

Sean Wood

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