The complete string quartets by Elliott Sharp from 1986 to 2014 have now been vividly remastered to 24-bit depth. The collection begins with Tessalation Row from 1986 composed using Fibonacci numbers and Just Intonation and finishes with Akheron in 2014, a luminous microtonal elegy. Performers include JACK Quartet, Soldier String Quartet, Sirius Quartet, the Meridian String Quartet, and Yellin Quartet. Sharp processes the strings using Buchla Thunder and electronics on X-Topia, Shapeshifters, and Dispersion Of Seeds. This collection presents a panorama of expressive possibilities manifesting innovations in sound, gesture and notation.

Elliott Sharp: String Quartets: 1986-1996
By Farrell Lowe
One of the epigrams from composer Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies notes that "repetition is a form of change" and that sort of idea is at the core of E#'s concepts in relation to this recording of string quartets—but it is a form of repetition that mutates like an old Delta blues. Consider the guitar work of Mance Lipscomb. Even though he's using a somewhat rigid form of "the blues," his guitar and vocal work cascades around the signposts of that form, revealing a deep, rambling world of emotional landscapes that would remain hidden to an artist following the form more closely. In another medium altogether, painter Jackson Pollock explored similar themes with the use of elements like line, color, flux, and stasis in an effort to achieve a new way of vision. E# follows a parallel path in this elliptical way of looking at or hearing the world around us.
In the liner notes Sharp mentions that this album is a collection of compositions concerned with identity, which in his words is "the ability of sonic flux and internal detail to vary greatly while overall is retained the exact structure and proportional shape of the piece and its encoded essence." That being his mission statement, he has succeeded with his wildly intense compositional style.
Many of Sharp's pieces are composed from mathematical inspiration and seem to be concerned with implicate order, patterns, and spatial relationships. Iannis Xenakis often worked with stochastic mathematical principles and composed music based on the random distribution of probabilities. He had a very strong compositional style that is immediately recognizable. From a mathematical point of reference, E# seems to be working the other end of that spectrum, and therein lies an aspect of his identity—the work presented here is indelibly his. His compositional style, the highest standards of performance, and the sheer muscularity of his music puts him on par with Xenakis—and like Xenakis, his music is immediately recognizable.
The album begins with "Lumen," a through-composed piece that brings to mind the fast flowing water of a river with its constantly shifting eddies, vortexes, and sudden quiet pools. It is followed by "Digital," a piece for prepared string quartet. It is a rhythm study in which Sharp achieves a "mega-mbira" tonal quality that is quite compelling. This piece is a lot of fun and reminiscent of the rhythmic structures used by Jon Hassell during his "Fourth World" phase. "Tessalation Row" is a tour-de-force of open strings, overtone loops, and electronic distortion based on the Fibonacci series. This piece sounds like a Jackson Pollock painting looks—brilliant.
Even though all of these pieces were composed in the last century, they should provide string players with years of challenging ideas to deal with and bring great satisfaction to fans of modern music. Elliott Sharp, indeed, has his own very unique identity!

Sharp String Quartets Review by "Blue" Gene Tyranny
An excellent rendering by the Soldier String Quartet of some of Sharp's best music: visceral patterns with searing harmonic content and new string techniques. The unique title piece, present in two takes interesting to contrast, seems to be partly a gritty and humorous takeoff on hoe-down/cowboy horseback-riding music (as depicted in movies) and then wanders into some strange slithery tuning zones traversed by squiggly melodies. Using the Fibonacci series to generate tunings, rhythms, and forms, the next selection, "Tessalation Row," delivers an electrifyingly gorgeous image as geometric and scintillating as the Zapotec design from Oaxaca, Mexico, on the CD's cover. "Digital" is a toe-tapping rhythmic study that uses a strip of spring steel woven into the strings near the bridge as a preparation, the instruments then all played with a two-handed hammering technique. "Diurnal" and "Ringtoss" study massed and unison melodic gestures using looping and deconstruction techniques. "Re/Iterations" is for string orchestra (made here by overdubbing the Quartet) with contact microphones attached to the instruments to pick up the subtle difference or "ghost" tones produced by the combinations of high harmonics, dense masses of swirling frequency/rhythm patterns lovely in their rawness. Like the first Kagel quartets, these pieces introduce new playing techniques and sounds, some stimulating the ear and mind with the aural equivalent of painting with gravel...raw and beautiful, especially the second cut "Shapeshifter."