A year after winning a Grammy (Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance) for their recording of Caroline Shaw's Orange, Attacca Quartet announced their signing to Sony Classical, and the release of two albums. While the second will feature pieces by minimalist and Renaissance composers, Real Life focuses on the string quartet's contemporary influences, mainly consisting of electronic and indie artists. Helped out by Snarky Puppy's Michael League and a few guest producers, the quartet enhance their instruments with distortion and electronic beats, often going for jagged textures and sharp rhythmic movement. Opener "Electric Pow Wow Drum," originally by the Halluci Nation (the Canadian Indigenous group formerly known as A Tribe Called Red), introduces the album with an upfront, pounding beat, while the group's bombastic strings imitate EDM lead synths, if not hard rock guitar riffs. The Brainfeeder family is heavily represented throughout the album's track listing, with three compositions by Flying Lotus, two by Louis Cole, one by Daedelus, and a guest appearance by TOKiMONSTA. Cole's "Real Life" has a steady disco thump and strings that switch between brittle scraping, Detroit techno chords, and swooping melodrama. FlyLo's "Clock Catcher" is rendered as a frantic, dramatic chase scene, and while it certainly is thrilling, some of the more detached nuances of the original are lost in translation. Another FlyLo piece, "Remind U" (co-written by Thundercat, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, and Herbie Hancock), strikes a nice balance between propulsive energy and expansive atmosphere, helped with the addition of haunting vocals provided by TOKiMONSTA. One of two original pieces written for the album, Squarepusher's "Xetaka 1" features sliced, glitchy breakbeats by the composer, and while his presence is unmistakable, he leaves a lot of room for the quartet's kinetically charged string acrobatics. The other original, Daedelus' "Holding Breadth" (also featuring its composer), is mysterious and suspenseful, with reversed strings and trippy effects. A rosy interpretation of Mid-Air Thief's "Why?" eschews the vocals and beats of the original, instead focusing on how the song explodes into color midway through. "Drifting Circles," by cellist/composer Anne Müller, has a rich, circular flow, eventually uncoiling and spacing out by the end. The album's adventurous selections reflect Attacca Quartet's enthusiasm for modern electronic music, and their performances disregard any boundaries or limitations, going beyond what audiences usually expect from a contemporary ensemble. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi

1		Electric Pow Wow Drum
2		Real Life
3		Why?
4		Clock Catcher
5		Remind U
6		Pilgrim Side Eye
7		Xetaka 1
8		Holding Breadth
9		Drifting Circles
10		More Love Less Hate
11		Electric Pow Wow Drum

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