“Petit Artefacts” is one of the newest albums released by “New Amsterdam Records”. Album had been produced by cellist Nick Photinos and recorded by various musicians – “JACK Quartet”, Charles Yang (violin), Jefrey Zeigler (cello), Christopher Otto (violin), Ari Streisfeld (violin),  John Pickford Richards (viola) and Kevin McFarland (cello). Nick Photinos is the leading cellist at the “eighth blackbird” ensemble. This album is a retrospective of new contemporary Music and its basics – the Compositions of this album were written not just by famous composers, but also by young and talented artists – David Lang, Andrew Norman, Bryce Dessner, David T. Little, Angélica Negrón, Florent Ghys, Molly Joyce, and Pascal Le Boeuf. All these composers have original and unique composing style, are using high variety of modern and innovative musical expressions and other elements. Their music is dynamic, full of contrasts and innovative musical decisions, dramatic and evocative. Album compositions were recorded in various places by professional and talented artists in 2014.

Album has 16 compositions. All these compositions are based on various contemporary classical music and avant-garde styles. Free improvisations, memorable melodies, high diversity of playing techniques and instruments, electronics, special effects and many more similar elements are combined and integrated together in one composition. The compositions are very different from each other – some of them are based on acoustic instruments with very less effort of electronics. Various timbres, peculiar and strange noises, pasages and other virtuosic elements are heard very much in these compositions. The compositions of this type are based on modern classical music – traditional instrumentation are often filled with various innovative and modern musical decisions and expressions, dodecaphony and atonality are also the main elements of these compositions. There also are compositions which are based on electronics and computer music. Specific, extraordinary and effective sound is created with various electronics, electro-acoustic instruments, computer devices and traditional acoustic instruments. All these very different music elements are masterfully combined together. High vareity of music styles, innovative instrumentation and harmony, contrasts and very different music episodes putting together against each other create original, interesting and effective sound of all compositions.