Silver Threads

Seventeenth-century text meets music technology and new poetry in composer Jacob Cooper’s Silver Threads. The songs are in a cycle; they also feature Melissa Hughes’ haunting soprano, starting with the title track. Cooper set the work, a haiku by the 17th-century Japanese poet Basho, to a laptop-driven score at Hughes’ request for a 2011 recital. “How delicately/The silver threads of rain/Sew sky to the earth,” she sings over a gentle, glitch-style electronic backing. Cooper later commissioned others to extend the conversation: Kristin Kelly’s “Fame” and Zach Savich’s “Antique Windfall” are accompanied by vocal blips and industrial-sounding drumming while Tarfia Faizullah’s “Wefted Histories” is highlighted by an operatic soprano sample that’s later manipulated. Hughes’ singing is intriguingly doubled up during Dora Malech’s “Unspun.” Silver Threads concludes with an appealing, percussion-free soundscape that’s paired with Greg Alan Brownderville’s “Jar,” which should inspire listeners to re-click "play" and experience the work again.