Rhythm Nation

New York-based PUBLIQuartet’s Rhythm Nation is infused with energy, improvisation and, indeed, rhythm, the backbone of all music. A melting pot of contemporary, jazz, bossa nova, salsa, Afro-Cuban, Puerto Rican and electronic sounds, Rhythm Nation captures the diversity of American musics and the lineages that created them.

Four flamboyant new works are PUBLIQuartet commissions. American composer Jlin’s multi-layered, percussive Baobab conveys the motion and timelessness of the indigenous African tree. American horn player and composer Jeff Scott’s Blues for Buddy pays homage to a beloved uncle by marrying melodies and marches to evoke a New Orleans second-line parade. Venezuelan multi-instrumentalist and composer Eddie Venegas infuses Cachumbambeando En Clave with the essence of Afro-Cuban rhythms. Mazz Swift’s Digging Gold; Deeper Blue explores rhythm and groove through the lens of Swift’s experience as a Neuroemergent composer.

PUBLIQuartet revisits two pieces from the Kronos String Quartet’s Fifty for the Future project: the evocative Sunjata’s Time by Guinean composer and virtuoso balafón player Fodé Lassana Diabaté, dedicated to the Mali Empire’s founding warrior prince; and the improvisatory Sixfivetwo by Pulitzer Prize-winning American jazz icon Henry Threadgill.

Haitian-American Daniel Bernard Roumain’s vignette “c# minor” from his Hip-Hop Studies and Etudes is a response to J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, and Duke Ellington’s classic “Come Sunday” from the legendary bandleader’s Black, Brown and Beige suite is re-imagined for four strings.

Interspersed throughout is a trio of electronic remixes lending their names to the album’s title, paying homage to pop music icon Janet Jackson’s seminal album from 1989.

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