Caroline Shaw/Attacca Quartet Orange 180g 2LP (Orange Vinyl)

TAS Rated 4.5/5 Music, 4.5/5 Sonics in the May/June 2021 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

This is the first time this piece is on vinyl. The album recently won a Grammy Award and was one of 2019’s most critically-acclaimed releases.

Orange, which features six of Pulitzer-Prize winning composer Caroline Shaw’s pieces for string quartet, is the first full-length album to exclusively feature works by Shaw. It is also the first release in a new partnership between New Amsterdam and NonesuchRecords, established with the goal of enabling contemporary American composers to realize creative ambitions that might not otherwise be achievable.

Shaw describes the world she built for Orange as a garden that she and Attacca Quartet are tending. She used the group’s centuries-old combination of two violins (Amy Schroeder and Keiko Tokunaga), viola (Nathan Schram), and cello (Andrew Yee) to createa rich environment where traces of what has grown there before – left by Haydn, Mozart, Ravel, Bartok, Bach, Monteverdi and Josquin – provide nourishment for new life.

Orange was met with great critical acclaim upon its CD and digital release last year. “Completely gorgeous in so many ways,” exclaims BBC Radio 3. “It hits you everywhere, all at once.” “A love letter to the string quartet,”says NPR. “[W]hen you hear all the imaginative sounds on Orange, you know you’re listening to the voice of a strong composer.” “[T]he pieces on Orange shoot off in thrilling and unpredictable directions,” says Pitchfork. “The music of Orange exudes joy and a sense of wildness.”

Spectacularly alive and evolving.

Beautifully crafted and graceful.

Attacca Quartet are brilliant throughout…sounds both strange and sweet.

Listeners to Shaw’s quartet music will hear sounds both joyous and solemn, at once ancient and post-modern, voiced by a sort of giant full-throated harmonium sighing and strumming and humming and droning dervish dances and spacey cosmic hymns while humpback whales send forth their exultant keening cries far out into the endless deep-blue sea.