Mark Takeshi McGregor is more than just a highly skilled virtuoso. Only a handful of musicians out there could match his ability to create music that does not let go until the very end. McGregor interprets every piece as if it were his last, and he does it with wisdom and devotion.
 
Starts and Stops is a study of delicate nuance. Featuring five composers and five approaches to music for instruments and electronics, the works are rooted in Lachenmann’s borderlands of sound, but they are no mere imitations. Hōrai by Keiko Devaux is appealing for its gentle, silky narrative, which develops at its own meditative pace. Her lyrical writing for the flute is deeply satisfying. Yota Kobayashi’s radiant Duo Augmented explores bolder textures and timbres; it is scored for flute and clarinet (the excellent Liam Hockney is at the top of his powers), and employs a rich palette of modern techniques. In his tripartite If this is a man, Farshid Samandari uses the recited text of Primo Levi’s Auschwitz memoirs to create an incredibly moving work. Fantasiae is Annette Brosin’s pièce de résistance. Combining the sounds of pencil on paper, prerecorded snippets of one of Telemann’s Fantasies, and airy, whispering flute noises, it takes the listener to the limits of perception. And The Starts and Stops for piccolo and electronics by Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi turns the piccolo into a new, strangely appealing sound carrier.
 
A fascinating marvel of a recording.