Peter Stopschinski

Chamber Music (Pecan Crazy)

Peter Stopschinski can transform damn near anything into a soundtrack. With his work in Austin’s Golden Hornet Project and Brown Whörnet, the ubiquitous local composer managed to balance experimental with classical. Chamber Music collects a dozen project pieces from the past eight years, a communiqué somewhere between Forbidden Planet and John Zorn. The superbly bizarre “Soundtrack to ‘Chickenfut'” features vocals from local jazz queen Tina Marsh and a touch of Poltergeist (boy gets possessed by a chicken), but there’s a little Hitchcock if you look through the rear window. Elsewhere, Stopschinski’s Nina Rota revue, “Melkor,” finds a nice, Felliniesque groove. The three-movement album standout, “Symphony #3,” performed by the Golden Hornet Orchestra in 2003, recalls A Scanner Darkly but ends in horror as you can’t help but imagine birds pecking out your eyes.

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This article appears in April 20 • 2007.

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