By Peter Bates

If the 21st-century avantgarde tickles you, try on this CD.

The ensemble known as eighth blackbird, named after the eighth stanza of Wallace Steven’s poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, performs progressive music. In their selection of material and in the quirkiness of their performances, they are slightly to the left of the Kronos Quartet.

By Rick Anderson

Strange Imaginary Animals is a very apt title for this collection of new (many in world-premiere performances) compositions for chamber ensemble, all of them requiring the players to employ "extended" techniques…

By Rob Barnett

Eighth Blackbird have been playing together since 1996 and by their 'fruit' you know that they are a well integrated group. This grab-bag of modern pieces dating 1989-2006 reflects the vitality and variety embraced by this enterprising group of musicians.

By Edward Ortiz - Bee Arts Critic

Ensembles that play 21st century music calling for novel musical approaches such as detuned instruments and toy pianos seem to be the rage these days. That trend poses two questions: Is it good music? Will it hold up over time? Only history can answer the latter. For the former, the answer is highly dependent on how stunningly it is interpreted and delivered. Meeting that challenge is no stretch for the Chicago-based ensemble Eighth Blackbird.

By Brett Campbell

On still another Naxos disk, the daring Chicago ensemble passionately performs neo-Romantic music by 2004 Pulitzer Prize winning composer Paul Moravec while their other new CD covers exciting, sometimes outrageous contemporary chamber music by Jennifer Higdon, Steve Mackey and other hot new composers.

By Richard Kamins

Eighth Blackbird, formed in 1996, is a young, vibrant, sextet dedicated to new classical music of the 20th and 21st Centuries. Frederic Rzewski is a composer who has producing challenging work since the 1960s. For this recording (released late in 2005), the group plays a recent work alongside 2 older compositions. "Pocket Symphony" (2000) is a 6-part piece that really spotlights how versatile the group is.