PUBLIQuartet releases new album "Rhythm Nation"

PUBLIQuartet, the New York-based string quartet known for stretching the boundaries of its instrument, released a new album, Rhythm Nation, on August 12. NPR's review described a record that ranges from West African and Venezuelan styles to modernist complexity, jazz standards and interstitial nods to Janet Jackson, whose 1989 album gives Rhythm Nation its name.

The record opens with Sunjata's Time, a suite by Malian composer Fode Lassana Diabate that was originally commissioned for the Kronos Quartet's 50 for the Future series, here arranged for string quartet by Kronos arranger Jacob Garchik. Other pieces include Venezuelan violinist Eddie Venegas's Cachumbambeando en clave and Pulitzer-winning composer Henry Threadgill's Sixfivetwo, alongside a track called Baobab by electronic producer Jlin, who sampled the quartet's own playing to build a percussive backdrop the musicians then improvise over live.

Threadgill's Sixfivetwo, another Kronos commission, drops the quartet into slithering figures, percussive spasms and bursts of pointillist notes, with an improvised solo from violinist Curtis Stewart that NPR said shifts from delicacy to funky swagger. A new work from composer Mazz Swift and a version of Duke Ellington's Come Sunday round out a track list NPR called a "smart mixtape" for how it moves between styles.

Founded in 2010, PUBLIQuartet has built its identity on improvisation and commissioning new work, a path NPR traced back to the pioneering Kronos Quartet, which staked out similar ground more than five decades ago. The group has previously improvised a live soundtrack for a televised presidential debate, and violinist Janinna Norpoth described Janet Jackson's original Rhythm Nation as an early, ear-opening lesson in inclusion that shaped how she thinks about the group's own repertoire.

Rhythm Nation, out now and logged on the release calendar, has NPR calling it a record that argues American music is built from a multitude of different beats, from Daniel Bernard Roumain's Hip-hop Etudes to a tango-tinged, New Orleans-style piece written for the quartet by Jeff Scott.