The latest release by bassist and composer James Ilgenfritz presents his work in four contexts: "Almostness" is a work for solo contrabass in Just Intonation scordatura with Autonomous Mechanical Instrument Array, while "Trust Fall" is a work for saxophone quartet, recorded live at Ilgenfritz’s 2018 residency for John Zorn’s The Stone at the New School series. "Apophenia V" features Ghost Ensemble, recorded live at Redcat in Los Angeles, while "Subject-Object-Abject" was written and recorded in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and represents the acute feelings of disassociation from reality that marked those days.

Almostness (2023)

This is a work for solo contrabass in Just Intonation scordatura, augmented by live interactive electronic sound and the Autonomous Mechanical Instrument Array (AMIA), a family of mechanical six “characters” who respond to data transmitted via Mari Kimura’s MUGICTM motion sensor. That data is distributed to the six mechanical instruments, and throughout the performance the AMIA will move in response.

The validity of Almostness as a piece of art is contingent on the idea that the bass techniques, the AMIA, and the real-time temporally modulated electronic sounds are engaged in a cyclical loop, existing specifically to reference each other in a continuous simulacrum: a copy with no original. Mari Kimura’s MUGICTM motion sensor tracks the movement of the bow hand, emphasizing the threshold between stillness and motion. The patience and attention necessitate a contemplation of mindfulness. The result is that the piece always engages a series of gravitational forces: electronic sounds initiated through stillness, and sounds initiated through stasis.

Apophenia V: Outmoded Large Crumbling Oval Lime-Green Midwestern Plastic-Frame Reading Glasses (2019) for Ghost Ensemble

The term apophenia describes humans’ tendency to perceive patterns within randomness. The Apophenia series is a set of compositions that explores the potential for a group of musicians to create a coherent narrative from a set of discrete fragments of information. These fragments should be ordered differently in each performance, necessitating different solutions to the problem of creating this continuous narrative.
For Apophenia V, the subtitle Outmoded Large Crumbling Oval Lime-Green Midwestern Plastic-Frame Reading Glasses refers to the order in which English language speakers combine adjectives: opinion-size-age-shape-color-origin-material-purpose. The work is a feature for harp and contrabass, and is structured so that their operations mirror the order in which adjectives appear in a sentence. While the eight pages of composed material should be played in a different order each at each performance, the harpist and bass soloist have a set of improvisation strategies that should be followed in the same order each time, regardless of the order in which the composed material is played.

Trust Fall (2018) for New Thread Quartet

Trust Fall organizes discrete sound-worlds into a series of scenes that inform each other and ultimately form a network of interwoven approaches to gesturality. Like moss or ivy, the ideas grow together and provide a feeling of continuous intuitive invention. Just as with a very flowing and interactive conversation, the ideas segue smoothly, but continue to move towards or away from primary thematic material.

Sections focus on particular saxophone techniques, such as slap tongue, multiphonics, glissando, or different types of air sounds. Whether the result favors calm or surprise, motion or stillness, sonority or noise, the piece flows forward through these ideas in a conversational way (with requisite pauses for reflection).

New Thread Quartet was extremely generous with their time and insight in the development of this piece, offering giant gobs of insight into the most efficient way to communicate the ideas in the piece. So the development was as conversational as the music is intended to feel, and the material is infused with the ideas and conversational nature of how the material developed.

Subject-Object-Abject (2021) For Hypercube

This work is a reflection on the self and the other, and the liminal space in between: What is the self, what is not the self, and the ambiguous discomfort associated with the uncertainty that surrounds matters that do not comfortably fit into the self-other binary. This ambiguity is what we often call the "uncanny valley." The concept of the abject refers to these representations of the self that are rejected. One might contemplate a hall of mirrors, where we see distorted representations of ourselves. The challenge is in distinguishing those distortions that come from the environment and those that originate in our own consciousness.