"So Percussion also performed Reich’s later 'Mallet Quartet' (featuring inventive harmonic movement and color, with a section in slow motion), 'Nagoya Marimbas' (a pentatonic fantasy for dueling marimbas) and 'Drumming Part 1' — just a 20-minute segment of Reich’s epic Drumming. It was all performed with breathtaking technical precision and flair, as well as endurance." Read More...

"So do the singing and electric- guitar playing of Grey Mcmurray, whose contributions amplify a progressive-rock spin already implicit in hypnotic, vibraphone-led passages. Those elements, Mr. Mcmurray’s reedy croon in particular, lend a relatable aspect to an otherwise pleasurably inscrutable evening of ambient washes and elemental bashes, and emphasize the theme of communal interaction intrinsic to this ambitious, beguiling show."

"Collaborating with songwriter Grey Mcmurray, who supplies vocals and guitar, the gentlemen of So have woven together a hypnotic tapestry of beats, blips, and tinkles."

"In 'Where (we) Live' the members of So Percussion, who all make their homes in Brooklyn, embrace the notion of community within the act of making music. Friends from other disciplines — a blacksmith, a potter, a painter, a cabinetmaker — join the musicians onstage and perform the tasks of their trades, acting as both muses and collaborators. A certain amount of trust is inherently part of any ensemble’s playing, but here So Percussion deepens it to explore how a sense of community enriches the creative process and the resultant work of art."

"... this group plays with an irresistible vitality.... This was a concert rare in its delightful excellence."

"The members of S? Percussion have friendly, down-to-earth personas and were captivating to watch perform, especially during more physical pieces." Read More...

"Just now, the leader of the movement is probably the So Percussion, whose new album with the guitarist Greg McMurray, Where (we) Live features a dramatized ode to Brooklyn. The quartet’s members — Eric Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski and Jason Treuting — are improvisers, composers, producers and musical entrepreneurs. They have teamed up with the DJ and composer Dan Deacon, commissioned pieces from Pulitzer-winners like Steve Reich and David Lang, and developed programs that are more theatrical extravaganzas than mere concerts. The reason for their success is simple: staggering ensemble virtuosity, which allows them to exhale the most complex scores like a single, multi-malleted organism."

"With the album Where (we) Live, a distillation of an evening-length show that So Percussion premiered and toured in the fall 2012, the group continues to push the conventions of what a percussion ensemble sounds like, or even what it is."

"Eight tuned bongos in a straight line meant one thing: Part One of Steve Reich's Drumming, his epic 1971 percussion opus. The iconic piece has become something of a signature work for So Percussion, partially because they are just so damn good at playing it."

"The inventiveness of the entire enterprise and the unpredictability of the ultimate product (the downloads) beautifully embody the open-endedness of Cage's aesthetic. By taking his ideas in directions he could never have imagined, So Percussion has realized and given new life to Cage's generous intent to divest his compositions of ego and to empower performers. One can't help imagining his infectious smile and laugh if he were on hand to experience this project." Read More...

"The evening was an exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam -- Cage punkishly reinvented for a new generation, without nostalgia for the old downtown scene."

"A hugely entertaining John Cage Centennial Celebration by So Percussion and friends performing on assorted electronics at Zankel Hall (3/26) led off the first night of American Mavericks." Read More...

"On tracks such as 'Third Construction,' perhaps Cage's best-known percussion piece, cymbal rolls hiss on the edge of the aural precipice, as cowbells expertly hocket with bongos in an asphyxiating conversation. The important lesson here, which So Percussion proves so well, is that indeterminacy does not negate the necessity of talent and preparation." Read More...

"Spending an evening listening to So Percussion's Cage 100 Bootleg Series is somewhat akin to sitting up all night in college, drinking red table wine, smoking Parliaments and discussing what it all means: Very few concrete answers result, but you still walk away feeling buzzed and charged." Read More...

"Last night, I attended a John Cage tribute by So Percussion and Matmos - one of the more entertaining and fulfilling evenings I've had in recent years, not least because Dan Deacon's conceptual piece Take a Deep Breath required me, along with the rest of the audience, to make a hooting, hollering, singing, stamping, and ringtone-playing Carnegie debut."

"That was not the concert's oddest moment, but it would be hard to find a consensus on what was. Maybe it was seeing these four imaginative percussionists (Eric Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski and Jason Treuting), along with the members of Matmos, an equally innovative electronica duo (Drew Daniel and M. C. Schmidt), playing their alternately tactile and thunderously crunchy collaborative work, 'Needles' (2010), on an amplified cactus. Or it could have been a random visual gag: a musician's suddenly stopping to do push-ups or slice celery stalks or shave off a long, thick beard."

"'The guy wrote a piece for turntables in 1939-he was way ahead of the curve,' said Adam Sliwinski, a member of the contemporary-music quartet So Percussion. Mr. Sliwinski and his bandmates feel a special kinship with Cage, whose centennial inspired the outfit's new recording project, 'Cage 100: The Bootleg Series,' as well as a tribute concert Monday at Zankel Hall." Read More...

"One of the most colorful ensembles around, and lately one of the engines that drives New York's new music world, So Percussion and guest artists (including Matmos, the electronica group) pay tribute to John Cage and his legacy in a program called 'We Are All Going in Different Directions.'"

"Here's hoping that So Percussion remains with us for a long time to come and that the group keeps expanding our horizons as it relates to composition and percussion, whether banging out the new or banging in the old." Read More...

"So Percussion and pianist Lisa Moore inhabit the music with a persuasive, commanding, and detailed performance on record: one can only imagine its powerful impact coupled with Goya's artworks in a live setting.

"Not only was chutzpah an ingredient of this project, but so was a seamless collaborative spirit. Meet the Composer commissioned this piece for So Percussion and Moore, and it is a truly inspired partnership. One hopes that it is merely the beginning of a long musical relationship."

"The So Percussion ensemble plays with fire and drive, and what is wrought is painterly music that grows on you with every listen." Read More...

"Written in 2009 and performed here by one of the piece's co-commissioners, New York's superb So Percussion, the Mallet Quartet possesses a quiet beauty that, almost despite its subtleties, demands to be heard." Read More...

"During the Ecstatic Music Festival, So Percussion teamed up with the swami of dance-party electronica, Dan Deacon. Ghostbuster turned out to be a loose, ornate symphony for soda bottles, marimbas, and one loud laptop. The piece does for the rave what Bartók did for Hungarian folk music: sublimate the urge to dance into a visceral concert experience."

"Moore and So Percussion perform the music with energy and commitment. Canteloupe Music's sound is clear and appropriately resonant."

"But the force and inventiveness of the music carries the day, and the performance, by the extraordinary pianist Lisa Moore and the splendid So Percussion, is first-rate." Read More...

"Just like going to the desert and complaining about the lack of vegetation, or visiting the California redwoods and being disappointed that the trees block the view, miss the point, so does coming to a program like this and listening with traditional ears. The trick is to find the music's expectations, and that's a rewarding experience in itself." Read More...

"The Kronos Quartet, So Percussion, and the six players in Dance Patterns deliver topnotch performances, and Nonesuch's sound is immaculate."

"Percussion ensembles generally play new music, because that's generally what there is for percussion ensembles to play. But Monday night at Kaul Auditorium, So Percussion -- who appeared courtesy of Friends of Chamber Music's Not So Classic Series -- dipped into the classic repertoire going all the way back to the dawn of percussion-ensemble time in the early 1940s. Perhaps surprisingly, alongside newer works it all came across as seamless, not to mention electrically experimental and wildly fun." Read More...

"Steve Mackey is a composer who can be counted on to produce music that crosses genres without inhibition and that's immediately appealing, and So Percussion's performances are consistently imaginative in their choice of repertoire and their eagerness to stretch the parameters of traditional concert music. The result of their collaboration, It Is Time, is everything that this combination of talents promises to be: a dynamic and unconventional but thoroughly engaging new work that doesn't sound quite like anything else." Read More...