George Antheil (1900-1959), the American self-styled “bad boy of music” lived in Paris during the late 1920s where his most controversial works were written. Determined to be noticed, and with a great deal of natural talent, he produced pieces for ensembles of outlandish combinations, full of “raw energy and driving aggression” (to quote Duo Odéon’s note). Throughout Antheil’s life he paraded his musical influences blatantly: his First Symphony quotes Stravinsky’s Petrushka, and often his pieces present a stylistic mélange of his 20th-century contemporaries just shy of rip-off. It’s all great fun.