Curtis Hasselbring's Number Stations

[ChrisSmolinski]

Number Stations is a multi-movement piece created by Curtis Hasselbring for his long-standing group, the New Mellow Edwards.  The work is inspired by shortwave radio stations that broadcast random series of five digit numbers, a real phenomena that has existed since the 1920s and is widely believed to be a means by which governments communicate messages to their agents abroad.   Hasselbring plays with the idea that the musicians are receiving coded messages via the written music and are working with and against each other, both clandestinely and openly.  Veering from hi-energy grooves to ambient cinematic textures, this is an instrumental suite telling a tale of a foreign agent exploring the American landscape. 

http://www.chamber-music.org/event/curtis-hasselbrings-number-stations