media & press

podcasts and interviews

press Quotes

Point / Cloud

New album out May 3rd, 2024 on Better Company Records

“Crowell’s minimalism is wonderfully rich and harmonically complex: busy arpeggios sketch out dense, extended chords that constantly mutate and move in unexpected directions…Throughout, Crowell constructs geometric structures that have a rare sense of kinetic energy: this is music that glistens, sparkles, and dances with joy.” John Lewis, The Guardian (named Contemporary Album of the Month)

"Composer and multi-instrumentalist David Crowell has minimalist bona fides: he played in the Philip Glass Ensemble for nearly a decade. But Crowell draws from a number of traditions in his work: prog rock, jazz, folk, and other contemporary classical idioms. His latest, Point / Cloud, features works for percussion, guitars, and a moving finale for voice, cello, and Crowell’s instrumentation…Point / Cloud is uniformly excellent, a recording that is among my favorites thus far in 2024.”
Christian Carey, Sequenza21

“Crowell proves his expertise at creating nuanced landscapes of feeling using spare forces…across the whole album, Crowell dazzles in both the conception and execution of his smart miniatures.”
Jeremy Shatan, AnEarful

“The sounds are haunting and captivating [2 Hours in Zadar], as is the entire disc.”
David Olds, WholeNote

Other Press

"Depending on the tune, the interwoven triple-guitar gamesmanship of Empyrean Atlas can run in a few different directions: toward the mathy post-punk of Horse Lords or Battles, toward warmly anesthetic ambience (say, Pink Floyd meets Bradford Cox), or toward West African high life. On “Echolocation,” the clangy, lapping repetitions feel most in line with that last influence. The quintet’s movements are coiled and contained, but pulsing with small, ecstatic fibrillations." Giovanni Russonello, New York Times 

"Empyrean Atlas offers bright, peppy Afrobeat jump-up...[they] have strayed a long way from their classical chamber-music roots, and are better and bolder for their ventures." Steve Smith, The Log Journal

“The four movements of David Crowell’s Music for Percussion Quartet range from energetic flourishes and layered rhythms to sustained halos of sound. Patterns change organically as the instruments - including guitar, played by the composer - interact with seamless animation or stillness.” Donald Rosenberg, Gramophone (reviewing Sandbox Percussion’s album And That One Too)

"At eighteen minutes, Poly Rush might seem more EP-length teaser than full-length argument on behalf of Empyrean Atlas, yet what a teaser it is...I can't recall another outfit whose polyrhythms lock quite so tightly together as do Empyrean Atlas's...Brief it might be, but a track like “Echolocation,” for example, is very much capable of inducing an entranced swoon the moment that dazzling interplay appears." Textura

“Crowell focuses his integrity most upon what what he can shape most effectively, where his ear goes, where the sound goes, on how he develops a sonic community. In tune with that, like Miles Davis or Steve Lacy, he’s openly generous in acknowledging his sources, and from this intersection he searches for something new, unique to his auditory & imaginative position. David Crowell deserves a lot of respect for trusting his own path and for really doing something with it. His music, and its evolving musical language, is worth following and listening forward to.” Patrick Brennan, Arteidolia, full article here.

“The most complex work on the program was the other world premiere, Verses for a Liminal Space by David Crowell, a musician-in-residence at Dumbarton Oaks…With two musicians seated at drum kits and the other two on vibraphones, the piece pulled the ear in multiple disorienting directions with polyrhythms in overlapping patterns.

As instruments dropped in and out, some of the players moved about, jangling ankle bells or rattling shells, sounds that added a shamanic element to the work. What was initially like a mellow rumble of chaotic chatter grew into chaotic tumults, which receded to more serene passages. The clangor of the vibraphones especially, allowed to ring with the pedal, created organ-like sonorities that vibrated through the brain long after the piece ended.” Charles T. Downey, Washington Classical Review (reviewing Sandbox Percussion’s world premiere of Verses for a Liminal Space)

“…writing for this new outfit (Empyrean Atlas) combines Minimalist drive and Afropop shimmer – a bright infectious mix.” TimeOut NY

“David Crowell’s alluring, vibrant ‘Open Road’ evoked expansive vistas. After a stately opening and sparse textures, the music morphed into an energetic canvas with a fast Minimalist pulse.” Vivian Schweitzer, New York Times

“The concert ended with David Crowell’s cinematographic and Minimalist ‘Open Road,’ an inspired work that evoked Mr. Crowell’s frequent road trips out West.” Vivian Schweitzer, New York Times

“The shining star of the album are tracks 2 through 5; David Crowell’s Music for Percussion Quartet…The piece is as joyful as it is evocative. Crowell’s use of form is masterful, and every moment of the music captivates the listener. It is a well-balanced, overwhelmingly lovely piece of music.” Olivia Kieffer, Earrelevant (reviewing Sandbox Percussion’s album And That One Too)

“David Crowell’s ‘Waiting in the Rain For Snow’ is notable for its crystalline sonic beauty.” David Weininger, Boston Globe (reviewing Now Ensemble’s album Awake)

“…a hymnal to a hidden process, the sense of transformation etched and sculpted by intricate, repeated figures in guitar and piano overlaid and compounded by shifting, drifting patterns in woodwinds.” Classical Review (reviewing Waiting in the Rain For Snow on Now Ensemble’s album Awake)

“Crowell’s use of layering encompasses the cannily composed with just the right taste of aleatory to allow for a bit of improvisational sounding organicism to zestily season a distinctive sound world…a lovely and warm aural bath (Eucalyptus)…the piece’s (Throw Down Your Heart) busily coruscating mallet-played melodies remind one of an entire shop of banjos and mbiras (thumb pianos) being played all at once.” Christian Carey, Sequenza21

“…Crowell’s singular vision transcends genre; no amount of hyphens can pin him down…” Exclaim

Articles & selected reviews

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compositions Featured on Wnyc’s New Sounds