Alarm Will Sound, the 20-member chamber ensemble that won a GRAMMY this year, is releasing New Acoustica on Cantaloupe Music. The album is a sequel to the group's 2005 record Acoustica, which reworked Aphex Twin's electronic music for acoustic players, and it extends that project to a newer generation of electronic artists.
From Aphex Twin to a broader survey of electronic music
The 2005 Acoustica translated the glitch-heavy textures of Aphex Twin into arrangements for live instruments. New Acoustica widens the lens. According to the album's liner notes by Gavin Chuck, the new record is "not focused on a single artist, but rather one about the breadth and diversity of the field." Its eleven tracks include arrangements of SOPHIE, Jlin, Tim Exile, Chris P. Thompson and Matt Rogers, alongside original pieces by King Britt, Marcos Balter, Christopher Stark and Lucrecia Dalt.
The track list shows two distinct methods. Most pieces are arrangements of existing recordings, such as SOPHIE's "Faceshopping" and Jlin's "Black Origami." Four tracks, "Electron Orbitals," "The Intention," "Back Against the Wall" and "Cabeza," were written for the ensemble. The liner notes describe these as new works in which electronic-music artists compose directly for acoustic players rather than in digital audio workstations.
A collaborative process built on iteration
The group describes its process as a back-and-forth between artists and arrangers, with musicians in the studio shaping the final sound. Chuck writes that the ensemble has developed methods that go beyond notation-centered classical practice. Helium balloons, Styrofoam and bubble wrap appear among the instruments and objects used. The notes say these are not simply imitations of electronic timbres but tools for realizing the composers' ideas.
That approach matters for the album's identity. The ensemble is presenting the results as neither purely electronic nor conventionally acoustic, though listeners will need to judge for themselves how far the music departs from either category. Chuck's claim that the work "could not exist any other way" is a statement of intent from the musicians, not an independent assessment.
Context within the group's 25th-anniversary year
New Acoustica is the second release in AWS 25, a series of albums and performances marking the ensemble's 25th year. The first, Lift, came out in spring. The group won a 2026 GRAMMY for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for Donnacha Dennehy's Land of Winter. Its earlier work includes a collaboration with Dirty Projectors on The Getty Address and an appearance with Björk at Carnegie Hall for her Vulnicura tour.
Two live dates listed for the series are October 29 at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, for In Vain, and April 15 and 16 at NYU Skirball in New York, for What Belongs to You. The source material does not provide the years for these dates, so readers should confirm them through the ensemble's official event listings before planning travel.