Deep Listening
One of New Music's most fascinating achievements has been the  importation of music performance to physical places where performance hasn't yet  happened. Iannis Xenakis, for example, scripted large works for musicians spread  throughout an audience. Trombonist Stuart Dempster and accordionist Pauline  Oliveros ventured into unexplored territory more definitively withDeep  Listening, a CD that took them into the massive, 14-foot deep Fort Worden  Cistern to record their performance. As a concept, deep listening involves  vastly elongated tonalities that draw cavernous echoes into the music.  Dempster's trombone sails like the largest hull tanker to make music, and  Oliveros's accordion plays magical tones that barely seem from the real world.  Panaiotis, who performed as the third member of the Deep Listening Band after  this CD, provides stretched voice, whistling, and found sounds. Meditative with  all the urgency of avant-garde music,Deep Listeningis an entrancing,  seamless wonder.--Andrew Bartlett