Anyone who believes that avant-garde music must by definition be grey and joyless should give James Dillon a try. Dillon, born in 1950, tends to be placed in the 'complex' pigeon-hole by critics, and his music is quite capable of exploding, or congealing, into dense, strenuously pulsating sound-masses. Yet the three works on this disc reveal an aural imaginativeness that never sinks into the earnestly doctrinaire. The performances are convincingly well-sustained, and the recordings ensure that the music never sounds cluttered or colourless.
The earliest piece has a straightforwardly urban title, and East 11th St NY10003 (1982) for six percussionists, seems to relish the mental agility involved in plotting a route through the wide range of available instrumental resources. The first two shorter sections of the three-part form are more effective than the third, perhaps because they are more purposeful, and they give a good indication of the positive qualities that dominate the two later pieces.
Windows and Canopies (1985) concerns a basic opposition of transparent and 'covered' textures that branches out into a network of musical events notable for their wit and delicacy as well as their dramatic energy. There is an almost balletic quality at times, as well as hints of parody suggesting a refreshing ability to sustain complexity without excessive seriousness. La femme invisible (1989) is undoubtedly serious to the extent that it explores analogies between geological features and human anatomy (shades of James Joyce?) yet the musical flow is never ponderous. The resulting soundscape is sometimes turbulent, sometimes refined, yet it manages to steer well clear of both preciousness and ugliness. La femme invisible confirms the composer's ability to shape a series of beguiling sonorities into a substantial musical design that wears its substance lightly. James Dillon deserves to be heard more widely in the 1990s than he was in the 1980s, and this disc should help to spread the word.'