Wagner Transformed cover

Wagner Transformed

Composer
Released

“Transformed” is right – with this intriguing album, producer J. Peter Schwalm and an all-star group of collaborators including Brian Eno and Eivind Aarset turn the master of Teutonic bombast into a purveyor of mildly glitchy electronic ambient music. Working with recordings originally made by the Liepaja Symphony Orchesta, Schwalm and his colleagues take snippets and longer passages from Richard Wagner’s operas Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal, and (especially) Siegfrieds Tot, and turn them into quiet meditations that ease in and out of analog and digital environments; “Siegfried: Initium 4” is dominated by layers of acoustic piano, while on “Parsifal: Initium 4” the line between orchestral chords and synthesizer is nearly undetectable. All of it is quite beautiful and sure to befuddle genuine Wagner fans.

Rick Anderson

Suggestions
12 Songs cover

12 Songs

Jenny Scheinman
Daniel Lentz: Ending(s) cover

Daniel Lentz: Ending(s)

Fahad Siadat, Twilight String Orchestra, Daniel Lentz, Nicholas Deyoe
Those Who Remain cover

Those Who Remain

Wayne Horvitz
Y in Dub cover

Y in Dub

Dennis Bovell, The Pop Group
Book of Life cover

Book of Life

Masayoshi Fujita
Strata cover

Strata

Bill Frisell, Skúli Sverrisson
Plong cover

Plong

Harmonious Thelonious
Edge Of The Light cover

Edge Of The Light

Lotte Anker, Fred Frith
Hence cover

Hence

U-Zhaan, Oren Ambarchi, Jim O'Rourke