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Bone fragments of each of the twelve Apostles lie in a sealed reliquary at St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral in Manhattan. Like the other holy relics housed at the church, they serve as physical reminders of the saints and martyrs that came before, helping believers feel more connected to a sacred past. In her new album, our little matches<\/em> (New Focus Recordings), composer Clara Kim<\/a> puts the relics of canonized Western classical music on display\u2014 not simply for veneration or critique, but as symbolic objects with shapeshifting functions. With masterful collaging technique, Kim stitches dozens of canonical fragments into her own soundworlds, inviting us into alternate portals of unsettling sentimentality and industrial brutality.<\/p>\n Themes of subjugation, alienation, memory, and sacrifice permeate our little matches<\/em>, and the seven tracks prompt connections between Nazi Germany, covert fascism, hostile architecture in urban spaces, and the social disposal of trans people. Kim\u2019s sonic language superbly represents intricate layers of hiding, control, and suffering \u2014 which is to say, this is not an easily-digestible album. It is, however, worth engaging with \u2014 aesthetically confident, dramaturgically cohesive, and emotionally complex. Veiled and enigmatic, Kim\u2019s work never tips into the opaque or impenetrable.<\/p>\n Situated halfway through the album is the eminently re-listenable piano quartet reliquary<\/em>, which features the four players (including Kim on piano) morphing through a series of classical fragments held together by original material. But this is no mere jukebox; Kim\u2019s transitions sound effortlessly nimble \u2014 transitioning from Prokofiev\u2019s Piano Sonata No. 7 to Beethoven\u2019s Kreutzer Sonata to Brahms Piano Quartet No. 3 to Debussy\u2019s \u201cFeuilles mortes\u201d Prelude to Bach\u2019s Cello Suite No. 2 in the span of 30 seconds \u2014 while the overarching work feels reverent and restless.<\/p>\n Helmed by Kim\u2019s expressive piano playing, the quartet members deftly dart between a range of performances styles, changing on a dime from crunchy contemporary techniques to Baroque detach\u00e9 to the ponderous sways of Romantic music. At various points, the performers let slip errant hits, random plucks, accented harmonics, and other sounds that don\u2019t belong (has the mandatory reverence for canonical composers become stifling?) until they finally leave the stage entirely, letting the hot mic pick up their shuffling footsteps.<\/p>\n In many ways, reliquary <\/em>is the centerpiece of the album, establishing a core premise from which the other tracks stem: that the \u201cclassical canon\u201d is lamentably treated as both a holy relic and an \u201canachronistic remnant of the past, kept for its association with the romanticized notion of the \u2018great masters\u2019\u201d \u2014 thus causing the music to lose artistic value and \u201cbecome mere objects serving soft power,\u201d according to the liner notes.<\/p>\n