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David Handler

Life Like Violence

Cantaloupe Music
Release Date: May 16, 2025

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1 Ever After [5:16]  
2 Solstice [12:22]  
3 Lullaby for Piano & Electronics [4:43]  
4 Life Like Violence Circa 2003, OR: Untitled Caprice [5:31]  
5 Sunbled Sky [4:07]  
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Composer, violinist, and NYC impresario David Handler has released Life Like Violence – his debut album – on Cantaloupe Music. Handler composes acoustic and electronic music that has been described by the New York Times as “eerie and superbly wrought… exploring polarities of light and dark, the sacred and the profane.” This attraction to juxtaposition is also evident in Handler’s role as co-founder of (Le) Poisson Rouge  (LPR), the boundary-breaking venue in New York, NY that has opened doors for his fellow performers and connected audiences with unheard music since 2008.

Life Like Violence explores the everyday tumult of the mind: fear, whim, rage, pain, fancy. As Handler puts it: “this is the sound of my psyche.” It is music that attacks itself, eating itself from the inside out. Ideas invade and gnaw at each other. They undermine, taunt, assault, exalt, and tease. Physical gestures disrupt long narratives whose melodies are obscured, revealed, decayed, destroyed, and mourned. What emerges is a broken beauty of spirit that has endured.

Handler plays most or all instruments on all tracks, save for the album’s sole orchestral work, and his inner dialogue permeates each piece–tangibly, in the form of spoken word on the album’s title track. “The music is not intended to accompany, but rather to arrest,” the composer says. It is meant to take over, not allowing the listener to do anything else. In this respect, as Handler explains: “it invites presence through overload.”. The release schedule includes four singles with accompanying videos – one a month starting on January 24 with the title track Life Like Violence circa 2003, or: Untitled Caprice.

  • David Handler's first album: 'In Life Like Violence,' is a real discovery / Crescendo Magazine
    Posted At: March 30, 2025
    Crescendo Magazine's Bernard Vincken writes…….."It's the sound of my psyche," says David Handler (composer, multi-instrumentalist and co-founder of (Le) Poisson Rouge (LPR) , a concert hall in New York), describing the five pieces he brings together on this first album, released on the Cantaloupe Music label, set up in 2001 by the founding trio of the New York ensemble Bang on a Can (Michael Gordon, David L...

  • Composer, violinist, impresario: David Handler, releases: 'Life Like Violence'
    Posted At: March 26, 2025
    His debut album – on Cantaloupe Music, Handler composes acoustic and electronic music that has been described by the New York Times as “eerie and superbly wrought… exploring polarities of light and dark, the sacred and the profane.” This attraction to juxtaposition is also evident in Handler’s role as co-founder of (Le) Poisson Rouge  (LPR), the boundary-breaking venue in New York, NY that has opened d...
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