I just became aware of the fascinating “Tales from Babel” project being conducted by the early music vocal ensemble The Clerks. Taking its inspiration both from early polytextual motets and psychoacoustical research interested in how people parse sound into different intelligible streams (ie. things like “the cocktail party problem”), the program is a beautiful marriage of musical creativity and empirical thoughtfulness. Plus, in doing this the Clerks have made some marvelous new pieces– Check out the “Lament on the Death of Michael Jackson” on the “Audio” page.