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The New York string quartet Ethel isn’t like most other classical groups: their name sounds better suited to a rock band, their repertoire includes improvised material, they amplify instruments, and their performances feature customized lighting and choreography. They may like to have fun now and again—Kronos Quartet is the model—but the members are all serious, Juilliard-trained players. Last year they released two fine albums with new violinist Cornelius Dufallo, who replaced founding member Todd Reynolds. AllSteel (Tzadik), a bracing collection of new music by John King, is filled with prickly dissonance and wild, hard-driving rhythms, with an emotional range that regularly jumps from melancholia to agitation to celebration. King started the album’s titular eight-movement centerpiece on September 10, 2001, and you can clearly hear a dramatic shift in tone through later movements.
