How odd that the recording that gained Kronos its initial fame proves to be the group's least remarkable: Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze," from the group's 1985 Nonesuch debut. At the time of its release, this encore of Hendrix's canonical rock song gave many traditional cultural commentators pause, and many young fans reason to rejoice. But as the years have passed and Kronos's members have become rock stars themselves (of a sort), listeners have come to find the pleasures promised by the Hendrix cover--soul, visceral rocking, rebellion--elsewhere on this record. The Slavic tinge of Aulis Sallinen's String Quartet No. 3 offers enough melancholy for half a dozen popular songs (and, about four minutes in, some very Hendrix-like rhythms). "Psychedelic" may be the best word to describe the myriad, rapid-fire patterns of the second and fourth movements of Philip Glass's "Company." And there are few rebels so legendary in America as Conlon Nancarrow, who lived in self-exile in Mexico and whose work, this String Quartet notwithstanding, is often too complicated for humans to play. --Marc Weidenbaum
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