New York is the first album to feature the complete percussion ensemble works by Gavin Bryars - performed by the stunning French ensemble Les Percussions Claviers de Lyon in a recording supervised personally by the composer. For Bryars the family of keyboard percussion is as important as the string family and a great percussion ensemble, like the group from Lyon heard here, are as musically subtle and expressive as a well-seasoned string quartet. From the mid-1970s onwards he has maintained a passionate commitment to this instrumental formation and his first opera Medea (1984) included a quintet of tuned percussion in the orchestra, replacing the more conventional violins. The five percussionists in Medea became Les Percussions Claviers de Lyon and Gavin Bryars still has a close relation with the group.