Composer and Violinist Austin Wulliman’s New Album “Escape Rites” 

Released on Sono Luminus, the album also features performances by the JACK Quartet

Austin Wulliman has released his second album of original music, “Escape Rites,” performed with his fellow musicians of the JACK Quartet, which also comprises violinist Christopher Otto, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell.

Known for combining familiar and experimental sounds, Wulliman weaves stories into his music and captures emotional resonance.

The title track, Escape Rites, uses a palindromic 25-tone scale, where each note finds its distinct place within a web of timbral orchestrations and polyrhythmic relationships. This piece recently made its European premiere with the JACK Quartet at Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin. 

Other works include Wulliman’s Late Edition, which is inspired by themes of self-discovery and connection with nature. 

“Pressed between bodies heaving to the pulse. The room inside the drum: each of us within its envelope,” Wulliman wrote in his program notes. “Sent elsewhere. Stamped to distant locales but together in this resonating box. My wrists were broken. My mind screwed on tight.

His next work Live News takes the ideas that formed the basis of his first album (The News From Utopia released in 2023), and reimagines them for performance by live string quartet with electronics.

The final track on the album is Wulliman’s string quartet arrangement of John Cage’s Totem Ancestor for prepared piano from 1942, which uses only 11 notes. In Wulliman’s adaptation, the pitches are re-imagined and re-tuned to new ratios, amid new layers of polyrhythms.

To purchase and listen to the album, click here.