David Crowell to Release THIS WORLD AND ANOTHER on Better Company Records
The composer's collaborators include pianist Vicky Chow and guitarist Gregg Belisle-Chi on the follow-up to Point / Cloud.
New York-based composer, saxophonist, and guitarist David Crowell has announced This World and Another, a new album to be released on October 9, 2026 via Better Company Records. The album features his music performed by pianist Vicky Chow, guitarist Gregg Belisle-Chi, Unheard-of Ensemble, and Crowell himself, and includes the works Memories of the Imagined, Exoplanet, and This World and Another. The first single from the album, Memories of the Imagined (II), will be released on September 17, 2026.
Following the release of Point / Cloud in 2024, the works on Crowell's new album This World and Another consider the passage of time and how human memories – which have both essential truths and misremembered details – shape our perception of chronological movement and recollection of the past. 'I recorded samples of the acoustic instrumentalists in each piece and then processed them into the electronics you hear on the album,' Crowell says. He describes each piece as representing an alternative reality, and as the artists perform they encounter a vision of themselves in the electronics, heavily altered but recognizable in the same way that people understand the distorted reality of their dreams.
Over the album's ten tracks, Crowell shares three new works. Memories of the Imagined, composed for Unheard-of Ensemble harkens back to Point / Cloud's finale, 2 Hours in Zadar. Both pieces feature singing cellist Iva Casian-Lakos alongside electronics, but Memories of the Imagined diverges from its predecessor in how it channels the floating, ethereal atmosphere into a more driven, frequently pulse-based musical world. 'As the music progresses,' says Crowell, 'performers are drawn progressively deeper into the complex, hazy swirl of electronics, only to emerge from the dream with cathartic clarity.'
'The contemplative, introspective nature of Memories of the Imagined is largely cast aside in Exoplanet,' says Crowell. While the music retains a degree of manipulated sampling, Crowell's alto and tenor saxophones, alongside Gregg Belisle-Chi's expressive guitar, embrace a heavy bassline and distinct beat-oriented direction, placing nostalgic saxophone loops and padded chordal textures at the forefront alongside dynamic and lively improvisation.
For the finale and the album's title work, pianist Vicky Chow demonstrates stunning virtuosity as she navigates a dichotomy of electronic sounds, from noisy interruptions and interjections to graceful and melodic loops. Chow takes her piano on a sonic journey lined with disparate textures – metallic, chiming, glassy – an inspiring demonstration of transformation that encourages introspection and reflection. Crowell describes Chow's elegant performance as 'winding its way through a varied and occasionally intimidating landscape, ending the album as it began, with a beautifully played, introspective solo piano passage.'
This World and Another is a multilayered expression of sound, experience, memory, and the relationships that exist between each. The music showcases how these elements connect with and shape one another, uncovering new perspectives and highlighting the unique worlds – both internal and external – that form in the wake of writing, performing, and interpreting the music and stories David Crowell is striving to tell.
About David Crowell
David Crowell's work crosses stylistic boundaries, encompassing contemporary classical composition, improvisation, jazz, and experimental rock and pop. Artistic processes vary piece by piece, from composing purely for acoustic instruments to the use of electronics and manipulations of originally sampled sound. Improvisation plays an important role in generating material, either to exist on its own terms or for later development in a more deliberate compositional manner. The New York Times has called his music 'coiled and contained, but pulsing with small, ecstatic fibrillations.' His music has been released on New Amsterdam, Better Company, Innova, National Sawdust Tracks, Coviello Classics, and Skirl.
Crowell's music has been performed at New York City's Museum of Modern Art, Park Avenue Armory, Bravo! Vail, Lucerne Festival Spotlights Series, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dumbarton Oaks, Library of Congress, Phillips Collection, Kennedy Center REACH, Bang on a Can Summer Marathon, the London Jazz Festival, Cortona Sessions for New Music, Kultursommer Wien, Caramoor Festival, Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival, American Music Festival (EMPAC), Tribeca New Music Festival, MATA Festival, National Sawdust, Merkin Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Barbes, and Joe's Pub. Commissioning ensembles and institutions have included A Far Cry, JACK Quartet, Sandbox Percussion, New Morse Code, NOW Ensemble, icarus Quartet, Ensemble Illyrica, Dumbarton Oaks, Da Camera Los Angeles, Tribeca New Music Festival, Arts at the Park, Boston Conservatory, University of Massachusetts, University of North Texas, University of Kentucky, and the University of Wisconsin.
Crowell's music has been supported through composer fellowships, grants, and residencies at Dumbarton Oaks, New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Canada Council for the Arts, I-Park Foundation, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Bang on a Can Summer Institute and the Mizzou International Composers Festival. He has presented numerous lectures on his work, including at Dumbarton Oaks, Manhattan School of Music, Duquesne University and California State University (Sacramento) where he was the featured composer at the Festival of New American Music.
As a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble (2007-16), and performing on saxophones and flute, Crowell toured four continents during the 2012-15 revival of Einstein on the Beach. Crowell's genre-defying, composer-led band, Empyrean Atlas, has been featured numerous times on WNYC's New Sounds, and on Soundcheck for a live performance and interview with John Schaefer. Crowell received a PhD in composition at Stony Brook University and a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Saxophone Performance from the Eastman School of Music.
Tracklist
This World and Another
Music by David Crowell
Release Date: October 9, 2026
Better Company Records
Featuring David Crowell (Saxophone and Electronics), Vicky Chow (Piano), Gregg Belisle-Chi (Guitar), and Unheard-of Ensemble
1. Memories of the Imagined (I)
2. Memories of the Imagined (II)
3. Memories of the Imagined (III)
4. Memories of the Imagined (IV)
Performed By Unheard-Of Ensemble: Iva Casian-Lakos (Voice, Cello), Matheus Souza (Violin), Ford Fourqurean (Bass Clarinet), Daniel Anastasio (Piano).
Engineered By Mike Tierney at The Bunker, Brooklyn, NY.
5. Exoplanet
Performed by David Crowell (Saxophones), Gregg Belisle-Chi (Guitar).
Engineered by David Crowell at Kensington Manor, Brooklyn, NY.
6. This World and Another (I)
7. This World and Another (II)
8. This World and Another (Interlude)
9. This World and Another (III)
10. This World and Another (IV)
Performed by Vicky Chow (Piano).
Engineered by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, NY.
Total Time: [43:24]
David Crowell, electronics and saxophone; Vicky Chow, piano; Gregg Belisle-Chi, guitar; Unheard-of Ensemble: Ford Fourqurean, clarinet; Matheus Souza, violin; Iva Casian-Lakos, voice & cello; Daniel Anastasio, piano
All music by David Crowell
Produced and Mixed by David Crowell
Additional Mixing on Exoplanet by Christopher Botta
Mastered by Christopher Botta.
Cover Art by Rebecca Crowell
Album Design by Carlo Costa
