For those not in the know, 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.

FODÉ LASSANA DIABATÉ (b. 1971)
Sunjata’s Time
arranged for String Quartet by Jacob Garchik
1. I. Sumaworo (4:20)
2. III. Nana Triban (4:25)
3. IV. Bala Faseké (3:22)

JLIN (Jerrilynn Patton) (b. 1987)
4. Baobab (6:00)

JANET JACKSON (b. 1966); JAMES HARRIS III (b. 1959); TERRY LEWIS (b. 1956)
Rhythm Nation Remix
5. I. We the People (1:35)

HENRY THREADGILL (b. 1944)
6. Sixfivetwo (13:01)

JANET JACKSON; JAMES HARRIS III; TERRY LEWIS
Rhythm Nation Remix
7. II. Janet’s Test (0:29)

JEFF SCOTT (b. 1967)
8. Blues for Buddy (5:07)

DUKE ELLINGTON (1899–1974)
9. Come Sunday (3:04)

EDDIE VENEGAS
10. Cachumbambeando En Clave (2:53)

MAZZ SWIFT (b. 1974)
11. Digging Gold; Deeper Blue (4:49)

JANET JACKSON; JAMES HARRIS III; TERRY LEWIS
Rhythm Nation Remix
12. III. Outro (1:58)

DANIEL BERNARD ROUMAIN (DBR) (b. 1971)
Hip-Hop Studies and Etudes, Book I
13. X. C sharp minor (2:27)

Infused with energy and improvisation, and featuring four new commissions -two works from the Kronos Quartet’s Fifty for the Future project, a couple of classics - PUBLIQuartet open on DIABATÉ’s Sunjata’s Time: which begins with the flourishing affair Sumaworo, then brings us the low key ebb of Nana Triban, rounding out on the sprightly Bala Faseké. Then we get the collective dynamics that thread through JLIN’s Baobab, before a quick, yet emotively impassioned rendition of JACKSON’s Rhythm Nation Remix for We the People is open us.

Along next is THREADGILL’s precisely cognizant Sixfivetwo which is itself backed by another chapter of JACKSON’s Rhythm Nation Remix, this time the .30 second Janet’s Test. Then we get SCOTT’s emotively vast Blues for Buddy, an endearing rendition of ELLINGTON’s Come Sunday, the new work coming to a close on VENEGAS’s vigorously peppy Cachumbambeando En Clave, SWIFT’s dynamically sculpted Digging Gold; Deeper Blue, the third and final section of JACKSON’s Rhythm Nation Remix, the psych-hued, stirring Outro, ending on ROUMAIN’s Hip-Hop Studies and Etudes, Book I and a sharply controlled, vehemently prosperous C sharp minor.

PUBLIQuartet performs Rhythm Nation [Official Video]

Official Purchase Link

www.publiquartet.com