Phil Kline is of the generation of composers influenced equally by the "classical tradition" (including Henry Purcell as well as Charles Ives and Steve Reich) and the rock & roll "tradition" (the Beatles, Led Zeppelin). Kline is ostensibly a minimalist--his music is tonal, open-ended (no "dramatic" beginning or endings) and consists of layered tones (produced by guitars, voices and tape recorders) that, in the manner of Byrd and Gesualdo, overlap and renew constantly. "96 Tears" features a chorus of eight electric guitars, producing waves of amiable feedback to the point where they sound like a consort of viols (with steel strings, of course). The drones--arching yet never overly dissonant--create a pensive, chilly pastoral. "Premonition (for 25 Tape Players)" and "The Holy City Of Ashtabula (for 25 Tape Players)" are dense, almost gothic (in the classic sense) fields of massed "string sections," eerily reminiscent of Penderecki's "Threnody For The Victims of Hiroshima"--sustained tension that is both magnetic and harrowing. GLOW IN THE DARK is highly recommended to fans of minimalist and "drone" composers of both contemporary classical (Alvin Lucier, Robert Ashley) and rock (Brian Eno, Thomas Koner, Lull) spheres.REVIEWS:Village Voice (8/11/1999) - "...sweeping glissandos culminate in huge roars...but they give him the kind of tone clouds that Penderecki used to seek, deployed in a more gradual, more fluid, more convincing form.... Downtown Kline may be, but his sensibility is symphonic." Rating: A