If the harpsichord seems an instrument unlikely to interest Iannis Xenakis, a composer known more for powerful forces and loud dynamics, clusters, glissandos and microtones, then this record effectively proves the opposite. If anything, it shows him to be one of the most inventive writers for the harpsichord since Domenico Scarlatti. Admittedly the instrument's quiet voice proves a disadvantage, but amplification soon remedies that. Positive virtues—or at least, ones appealing to Xenakis—include its incisive attack, its ability to play notes of tiny duration without any hint of reverberation, and the wide range of unearthly sound-effects it has the capacity to produce. Add to this Xenakis's close association with Elisabeth Chojnacka, a player whose virtuoso technique allows her access to repertoire light-years removed from standard harpsichordists' fare, and it becomes even easier to understand how the four impressive pieces performed here came into existence.
Two are for harpsichord alone: Khoai (1976), which has been recorded several times before, and Naama (1984), which is new to the catalogue. With a mind as original and independent as Xenakis's it makes little sense to look for influences, but in Naama (''Flux'') the keyboard style inhabits a sound-world related to those of Messiaen's piano works of the 1950s, Bartok at his most percussive and the player-piano music of Conlon Nancarrow, the last of these a close if unlikely cousin in terms both of the manic activity of the music and the use of bright sonorities. Chunky chords, aggressively pounded in pulsing rhythms that regularly jolt themselves out of their predicted path, prove to be the most memorable feature here. Khoai explores different compositional possibilities, and also different characteristics of the instrument: strange registral contrasts, scattered textures and relentless pace make it a more dazzling if superficially less comprehensible piece than Naama.
The remaining two works combine the harpsichord with other instruments, solo percussion in Komboi (1981) and large chamber ensemble in A l'Ile de Goree (1986). The episodic structure of Komboi (''Knots'') strikes me as diffuse, brilliantly conceived as the sonorities are. In A l'Ile de Goree, by contrast, Xenakis sets out to sustain harmonic components in a manner that lends breadth and continuity of the music. In both works the players match Elisabeth Chojnacka's seemingly boundless energy, producing performances that make this one of the most startling and absorbing Xenakis anthologies yet released.'