Crumb’s Black Angels for amplified string quartet, with the same players doubling on various types of percussion and a set of tuned glasses, has become a classic. There were three recordings in the 1970s and there are even more available now, including the Kronos (Nonesuch, 4/91) and Cikada (Cala, 12/95). But those are on mixed CDs and there is obviously a place for Black Angels in the Complete Crumb Edition. What is immediately clear with the young Miró Quartet is that Crumb’s uniquely evocative special effects are delivered with a confidence and finesse that some of the early recordings lacked.

The novelty here is Unto the Hills, a cycle of Appalachian songs arranged for percussion quartet with amplified piano in 2002 and sung here by the composer’s actress and jazz singer daughter Ann. Her fans will want this CD but they may find Black Angels tougher going. She sang Three Early Songs with her father at the piano on his 70th Birthday Album (Bridge, 7/00) but this time she recalls the Appalachian folk songs from her childhood and says that working with her father on this cycle was ‘the dream of a lifetime’.

You can see what she means since Crumb has taken these haunting traditional songs and immersed them ingeniously in his own sound-world. With ‘Black is the colour’ this can be compared with Berio’s arrangement since it’s the first of his Folk Songs: Crumb is the more radical with exotic percussion and no harmonisation as such. Ann Crumb’s delivery is close to folk singing, using simple unadorned versions of the melodies, which she and her father chose from those available. Some of them, like ‘Poor wayfaring stranger’, are also known as spirituals. These memorable tunes thrive in their new context even if the whole set becomes an extended meditation. Everything well recorded as in previous volumes.