NEW TO YOUTUBE | VC Artist Attacca Quartet Perform "Real Life" by Louis Cole

The quartet's new album, "Real Life," re-envisions, re-shapes, and re-imagines tracks originally recorded by some of today’s most influential artists in electronic music

The Attacca Quartet has recently released their debut album on Sony Classical. "Real Life" explores the quartet's interest in electronic music, and re-imagines tracks by prominent artists in this genre such as Flying Lotus, Squarepusher, Louis Cole, Anne Müller, Daedelus, and Mid-Air Thief.

While the album represents the quartet's first foray into electronic music, they are no strangers to innovative programming. Among their previous albums are a string quartet arrangement of Haydn's "The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross," and Orange, the first full-length album of works by the Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Caroline Shaw.

The quartet has always had a passion for electronic music. "I remember the first time I heard Flying Lotus’ music," says violist Nathan Schram. "It was a confusing combination of exhilaration, envy, and deep FOMO. His music is hyper-sophisticated, endlessly nuanced, and hits all the feels you didn’t know you had. It became one of my missions in life to find a way to bring this wild energy to our ever-growing Attacca universe."

For this album, the quartet had the opportunity to work with Grammy Award-winning composer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and Snarky Puppy bandleader Michael League as well as co-producer Nic Hard.

The Attacca Quartet was formed in 2003 with the aim of creating a new paradigm for the genre of the string quartet in the twenty-first century. They have held residencies at Juilliard and the Metropolitan Museum of Art — and collaborated with artists such as James Blake and Björk.

They remain enthusiastic about the possibilities the string quartet can offer. “What with today’s opportunities for mixing art forms, mixing genres, and expanding the horizons of classical music in composition and in playing — it’s a really exciting time to be a musician,” says violinist Amy Schroeder.

“We never think: ‘Can we do it?’,” says cellist Andrew Yee. “We just want to do it, and so we give ourselves the goal.”