Kenneth Kirschner in Four Parts

Bracing. Ecstatic. Borderline impossible. Impeccably minimalist on the surface. Substantively abstract down below. This is often the experience of listening to the music of Kenneth Kirschner, and it’s most certainly the case with July 19, 2024, which he posted on Bandcamp late last month. The album, which consists of four tracks, is nearly three and a half hours long, and I will not claim to have yet listened to the full thing myself, but I do recommend starting, as I did, with the first — and shortest — track, “July 19, 2024 – i.” This opening section sounds like a quintet for strings and piano as reflected in the freshly wiped screen of a broken cellphone, turning everything into a frenetic kaleidoscope. It’s brittle and lively, vibrant and exploratory, and impossible to pin down. The themes flow by rapidly, and your ear has to retrain itself to a different sort of listening, not so much following as succumbing. Highly recommended.