Dynamic Maximum Tension

Composer and bandleader Darcy James Argue and his Secret Society ensemble make their Nonesuch Records debut with Dynamic Maximum Tension. The album pays homage to some of Argue’s key influences with original songs dedicated to R. Buckminster Fuller, Alan Turing, and Mae West. Fellow Nonesuch artist Cécile McLorin Salvant, with whom Argue collaborated on her long-form musical fable Ogresse, joins the ensemble for ‘Mae West: Advice’. Dynamic Maximum Tension’s 11 tracks, on two CDs, also include a response to Duke Ellington’s ‘Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue’, titled ‘Tensile Curves’, among other original songs. The album track ‘Dymaxion’ – a portmanteau of “dynamic maximum tension” – takes its name from the term coined by architect and inventor Fuller to describe his concept of using technology and resources to maximum advantage.