We needed to get an early begin to determine methods to ergonomically squeeze all of Sandbox Percussion’s devices behind the Tiny Desk.
The band deploys a surprisingly vast arsenal. The professionally-built devices, just like the bass drum and vibraphone, took up many of the Tiny Desk actual property. The smaller, surprising devices wanted to be positioned excellent for straightforward entry. There have been metallic plumbing pipes and picket slats yow will discover on the ironmongery shop, extraordinary wine glasses out of your kitchen, an previous cigar field and an empty bourbon bottle.
The members of Sandbox Percussion have a longstanding relationship with composer Andy Akiho. They start this set with a section of Seven Pillars, an 80-minute piece Akiho wrote for the group, which was a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist. It is a supercharged, edge-of-the-seat efficiency the place the sounds delight, the polyrhythms intertwine and mallets fly in a blur.
Then come the wine glasses. Bear in mind, as a child, the way you aggravated your loved ones by operating your finger across the rim of a water glass on the dinner desk? The Sandbox guys take this to an beautiful degree in music by Viet Cuong. The glasses, tuned with various ranges of water, toll woozily, as if bells might get drunk. Later, they “sing” with otherworldly overtones, sounding higher than any synthesizer.
As a bonus, Sandbox invitations Akiho himself to hitch on metal drum for the mesmerizing closing piece –- Akiho’s personal Karakurenai, the place interlocking beats groove like gamelan music, and scrumptious sounds emanate from bowed rice bowls, pipes and slabs of wooden.
Ultimately, it was value unloading all these superb devices to doc one in all at present’s best — and friendliest — percussion ensembles.
SET LIST
- Andy Akiho: Pillar III
- Viet Cuong: Water, Wine, Brandy, Brine
- Akiho: Karakurenai
MUSICIANS
- Ian Rosenbaum: percussion
- Jonathan Allen: percussion
- Victor Caccese: percussion
- Terry Sweeney: percussion
- Andy Akiho: metal drum
TINY DESK TEAM
- Producer: Tom Huizenga
- Director: Joshua Bryant
- Audio Technical Director: Josh Newell
- Host/Sequence Producer: Bobby Carter
- Videographers: Joshua Bryant, Sofia Seidel, Grace Raver
- Video Editor: Kara Body
- Audio Engineer: Josephine Nyounai
- Manufacturing Assistants: Ashley Pointer, Dora Levite
- Photographer: Mhari Shaw
- Tiny Desk Staff: Maia Stern, Lars Gotrich
- Govt Producer: Suraya Mohamed
- Sequence Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson
- VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins