U.S. Highball (2003)

"Another of American iconoclast composer Harry Partch's rail-riding epic American travelogue pieces, cast for quartet by Ben Johnston and sung by David Barron. Partch himself was something of a vagabond and Highball is highly autobiographical. And, indeed, the text does describe impressions and snippets of conversations that Partch encountered during a 1941 rail trip from Carmel, California, to Chicago. From the strength and detail of the performance, this is music for which the group has an obvious affinity; perhaps it is the collective California connection, Kronos being rooted in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is hardly a conventional song cycle by any means, but it prefigures avant-rock figures Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart by some four decades in its sparse-yet-somehow-dense textures, abandon, and song-of-the-open-road texts. It's funny, it's serious, it's trenchant, it's absurd, and on this disc it's all performed with pitch-perfect spirit." (Daniel Felsenfeld, Strings Magazine)