As modern, experimental classical music goes, they don't come much more interesting that Ken Walicki's Cyberistan. It's a feast for the ears, in so much as it's full of odd sounds that you probably haven't heard before.

The first half of the program--a more vintage collection of Kronos enthusiasms--also helped set the postmodern stage for the early music. A hard-edged new piece, “nada Brahma” by a young American, Ken Walicki, sought a cosmic sound with the help of some techno-pop electronics.

Big Dog for solo clarinet displays an adept handling of multiphonics, microtones and timbral shifts. Constructed in short, fragmented sections, Big Dog alternates between traditional writing and creative use of extended techniques, including a quasi­chorale of multiphonics. Brilliant technical passages are blended with introspective phrases, creating a virtuosic composition.

Ken Walicki creates “Electro-Acoustic” music on this album with a collection of guest artists. A 10+ minute “Light” has Tom Peters’ bass bowing, slapping, buzzing and hammering around various electronic musings, while a sonata like “Black Water” features Virginia Costa Figueriedo’s pretty clarinet and Füreya Ünal’s creative piano. Long tones and mystical electronic sounds are produced with Rachel Mellis on flute during “Sabah” while plugged in musings and Satie-esque piano from Unal takes place on “Cyberistan.” The Eclipse Quartet goes from Bartok to magma as the depths are plunged on “nada Brahma” with a feel that makes you wonder when someone is going to start chanting “Number 9, Number 9.”

The highlight of the newer works for me was “just like a dream experience…” by Ken Walicki. The immediately attractive choral lines, accompanied by the organ and punctuated by percussion and harp, made for an entertaining and satisfying world premiere.

Ken Walicki held complete attention in "nada Brahma" through all kinds of curious textural slipping and sliding.