Wagner Transformed cover

Wagner Transformed

Composer
Released

“Transformed” is right – with this intriguing album, producer J. Peter Schwalm and an all-star group of collaborators including Brian Eno and Eivind Aarset turn the master of Teutonic bombast into a purveyor of mildly glitchy electronic ambient music. Working with recordings originally made by the Liepaja Symphony Orchesta, Schwalm and his colleagues take snippets and longer passages from Richard Wagner’s operas Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal, and (especially) Siegfrieds Tot, and turn them into quiet meditations that ease in and out of analog and digital environments; “Siegfried: Initium 4” is dominated by layers of acoustic piano, while on “Parsifal: Initium 4” the line between orchestral chords and synthesizer is nearly undetectable. All of it is quite beautiful and sure to befuddle genuine Wagner fans.

Rick Anderson

Suggestions
Gefion cover

Gefion

Jakob Bro, Thomas Morgan, Jon Christensen
Rework: Philip Glass Remixed cover

Rework: Philip Glass Remixed

Cornelius, Beck, Amon Tobin
Separation Songs cover

Separation Songs

Eclipse Quartet, Matt Sargent
<3 Bird cover

<3 Bird

Kevin Sun, Matt Honor, Walter Stinson
V cover

V

Barn Owl
Ceremonial cover

Ceremonial

Anchorsong
Mercury cover

Mercury

The Range
Sabi cover

Sabi

Eraldo Bernocchi, Hoshiko Yamane