John Mackey’s “Turbine” is the industrial-sounding piece that sounds like an absolute beauty to play. Heavy on the percussion and chimes, it would be a drummer’s dream. The brass is phenomenally colorful for the ages. The portion that I was able to listen to was only a sample, but even this sample is cool. We have long-range dissonances with fall-offs in the horns and trumpets. The woodwinds soon follow suit. The track starts off with a thumping A in the mallets (xylophone or other instrument). This is what makes it sound like a turbine. The build of the brass quickly fading to silence and back again is just fantastic.
To this reviewer, this sounds like movie music in some forbidden city that gets really dark. It sounds like a conquest of sorts to leave you dangling in suspense. There is the addition of piano to add to the rhythmic proportion. This piece is like a wave. It starts and ends again with the mallets featuring a basic melody but it then evolves into flashes and builds of woodwinds and brass and all the flurries of color all around. It has enough energy to keep you dancing all day and all night, if this were dance music. It is darkness and light in a far-away field and exceedingly brilliant.
If you are band or orchestra or wind ensemble, thinking about your next work for performance or if an avid music listener. This definitely one to listen to.
