Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" is indubitably a masterpiece of the most sublime emotional order. The notion of reinventing this classical mainstay might seem impossible, defamatory, or even ridiculous. Apparently, William Orbit is willing to risk it: his "Pieces in a Modern Style" (2000) gives

Ambient, Classical, Electronic, Minimal, Moody, Sophisticated, Techno/house/big beat

To call Terre Thaemlitz experimental is a generalization of the worst kind. Thaemlitz is a musical experimenter, to be sure. But he's also a social experimenter, a technological experimenter, and a gender experimenter. Thaemlitz is a philosopher who uses his sonic thinkscapes as social treatises and

Anxiety, Dense, Layered, Political, Self-reflection, Sophisticated, Tense