Tag: instrumental

Steve Reich – Music For 18 Musicians, 1978

To celebrate our having posted 100 albums, I wanted to share a record that’s so canonical that it would feel silly to post any other day. Steve Reich needs no introduction, and the influence of Music For 18 Musicians can’t be condensed. Instead, here are Reich’s liner notes that explain a bit about how the piece “works,” including an interesting mention of borrowing the Balinese gamelan technique of using a distinct audio cue to call for a change in pattern. Here’s a nice overview of the “building blocks” of the piece.

To keep it brief, I’ll add that as a vocalist, the most exciting part about Music For 18 Musicians for me is its treatment of human breath and mechanization. The limits of human lungs (both for wind instruments and vocals) structure the pulse of the piece, and the other instruments are written to mimic the natural arc and fall of breathing patterns. Despite being built around such an organic phenomenon, the music is highly mechanized, a musical hybrid of human and machine. I’m always surprised that this is considered “minimalism,” when in truth it’s dizzyingly complex sonic embroidery. Sublime and light-dappled. Try it in headphones if you haven’t before. Wild that this only took Reich three years to compose. Cheers!

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Sivakumar Sarma – Santur: Inde Du Nord, 197-

Perfection. Pandit Sivakumar Sarma (also Shivkumar Sharma) was the first musician to play Indian classical music on the santur (a hammered dulcimer traditionally used as a folk instrument). Sarma has had a hugely prolific career and has worked with the most legendary classical musicians, but I have yet to hear very much of his catalog because I can’t tear myself away from this. Achingly beautiful work from the master of the instrument.

Note: Nobody seems to know exactly when this record was released, but based on a few hints I would guess mid-70s. This never made it to CD and to the best of my knowledge, has never been reissued (cough).

Henri Texier – Amir, 1976


The debut album from French jazz double bassist Henri Texier, who has worked with Don Cherry, Bud Powell, Donald Byrd, Chet Baker, and Total Issue, and co-founded the Transatlantik Quartet and European Rhythm Machine. Amir is spare and stark, vibrating and volatile with unrealized possibility, slightly sinister and about to burst at the seams. Long stretches of double bass drone, lyricless vocal chants (Texier’s voice sounds an awful lot like a string instrument), and a few brief forays into free-jazz, moments at which the record threatens to break apart. Texier on double bass, viola, oud, flute, percussion, piano, and vocals. Cool, weird dinner-eating music.

[RIP Dieter Moebius] Cluster – Sowiesoso, 1976

This is in honor of the life of the German musician Dieter Moebius, who passed away yesterday at the age of 71. He was most famous for co-founding Cluster and Harmonia, and for his longtime collaboration with Connie Plank.

Sowiesoso (“always the same”) is Cluster’s fourth full-length, recorded over a period of just two days in Forst, Germany, and mixed in Connie Plank’s studio. Compared to their other albums, Sowiesoso is gentler and more melodic, alternately wading through a dense jungle inhabited by robotic synth-chirp birds and picnicking in the countryside. It’s shimmering, warm, and surprisingly nostalgic, as far as Cluster goes, with track titles that translate to “For Eternity,” “The Wanderer” (fretless bass!), and “Once Upon A Time.” Outlier “Halwa,” replete with middle Eastern kitsch, is a reminder that Cluster still deals in the scronky sense of humor innate to so many krautrockers. Closer “In Ewigkeit” (“For Eternity”) is an opiated smoke drift, ghostly and sensual, a soundtrack to leaving the party as the sun comes up, wide awake but with heavy eyelids.

Safe travels, Moebius, and thank you for everything!

Karma Moffett – Sitting Still Within / Sitting Still Without, 1982

 
Guest post by Gaurav Bashyakarla (Beer on The Rug)

This cassette was gifted to me by a very close friend in 2011 after returning from travels through the great state of California. The album was originally digitized with the intention of being shared on the Crystal Vibrations blog around the time it went defunct. Unfortunately it never saw the light of day there but is here now for your listening pleasure.

The sounds, frequencies and overtones on this tape lend themselves to a stillness of mind and chakra activation/harmonization. Just listen and you will see/feel.

Double Fantasy – Universal Ave., 1986

For those who don’t mind a healthy smear of cosmic cheese. Molten guitar streaks, shivery synth grooves, and unhurried drum machines. Very sick and very slick. Makes me want to throw on some mirrored sunglasses and drive a silver convertible along winding cliffside vistas smoking an e-cig in front of a photoshopped sunset. Alternately meditative and searingly emotive, this thing is a few pan flutes shy of Pure Moods (a very high compliment). There’s not much decisive information about Double Fantasy available online, but it seems to have been the project of Klaus Schulze disciple Robert Schröder, who was only allowed to release two records under the Double Fantasy moniker because of legal clashes with his label, Innovative Communication. He went on to release many more records under a slew of different aliases, but both this and the other Double Fantasy release, 1994’s Food For Fantasy, are worth tracking down.

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ARC Mix Vol. 17: Clandestinations

We’re really excited to unveil our new look today, and to share a mix we made for Mexican Summer’s imprint Anthology Recordings. If you like it, you can download an mp3 version here. Enjoy!

Tracklist:
1. Die Partei – Strahlsund
2. Jun Miyake – Pico Birds
3. Susana Estrada – ¡Gózame Ya!
4. Lio – You Go To My Head
5. Stephen Encinas – Lypso Illusion
6. Hector Zazou with Bony Bikaye – Reivax Broie Du Noir
7. Anna Domino – Caught
8. Joe Meek – I Hear A New World
9. Unknown Artist – Unknown Song (thanks Lolo!)
10. Brenda Ray – Hearts Entwine
11. Lena Platonos – Αιμάτινες Σκιές Από Απόσταση
12. Tri Atma – Neon Muscheln
13. RAH Band – Sam the Samba Man
14. Aragon – Polaris
15. Clifford White – Into the Blue

[RIP] Charanjit Singh – Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, 1982

We were deeply saddened to learn that Indian musician Charanjit Singh suddenly passed away at home in Mumbai this morning, at 75 years old. His death came just a few months after the passing of his wife, Suparna Singh.

Over the past few years, Singh’s story has been told hundreds of times, attaining mythological status. It started as whispers on the internet in 2005, rumors of a record of frenetic acid house renditions of traditional Indian ragas–but it was the record’s release date that left listeners in disbelief. Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco beat was purportedly recorded in 1982, a full three years before Phuture wrote “Acid Tracks,” generally acknowledged as the pioneering acid house track.

It took another five years for Synthesizing to be reissued, instantly cementing it as an electronic cult classic. Singh surfaced and started playing shows, largely thanks to the efforts of Rana Ghose. With Singh’s reappearance we learned that he had been a Bollywood session guitarist, that he had bought his Roland TB-303 in Singapore shortly after its introduction in late 1981, and that Synthesizing had come about through at-home experimentation. Singh recounted:

There was lots of disco music in films back in 1982, so I thought, why not do something different using disco music only. I got an idea to play all the Indian ragas and give the beat a disco beat–and turn off the tabla. And I did it! And it turned out good.

We were fortunate enough to have Charanjit play at Body Actualized Center last August (photos below) and it was one of the most memorable musical experiences of our lives. The show was packed and sweaty, with Charanjit shredding through a long and ecstatic set on his Jupiter 8 in a suit jacket, unfazed by the heat. As was their tradition, his wife Suparna was seated next to him smiling the entire time.

photo by Erez Avissar
photo by Erez Avissar

Wally Badarou – Echoes, 1984

Wally Badarou is a legend. Paris-born and Benin-raised, he was part of the Compass Point Studios in-house recording team in the Bahamas; was a session musician for Grace Jones, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Herbie Hancock, Level 42, Black Uhuru, Gwen Guthrie, Robin Scott, Talking Heads, Tom-Tom Club, Robert Palmer, and Manu Dibango; and produced for Fela Kuti, Salif Keita, and Marianne Faithfull, among many, many others. Echoes is an entirely instrumental, almost comically smooth piece of electronic funk wizardry. You’ve probably heard the single “Chief Inspector” in a million DJ sets, but the whole album is mixtape ready. Take it to the beach, y’all.

Mix: Winter (Outdoors)

I made this mix with the hope that you’ll listen to it outside in headphones. If you like it, you can download an mp3 of it here.

Tracklist:
1. 0:00 David Sylvian – Preparations for a Journey
2: 3:10 Stellar OM Source – Alpine Architecture
3. 5:30 Meredith Monk – Strand (Gathering)
4. 7:20 Bernard Xolotl – Perseverance (Excerpt)
5. 13:10 Actress – Untitled (Excerpt)
6. 14:50 Emerald Web – Flight of the Raven
7. 16:40 Muslimgauze – Sapere Aude
8. 20:00 Deutsche Wertarbeit – Auf Engelsflügen
9. 25:10 Woo – Hopi
10. 28:00 Dip in the Pool – Rabo del Sol
11. 32:40 Kraftwerk – Ananas Symphonie
12. 35:00 Don Slepian – Sea of Bliss (Excerpt)
13. 37:00 Drahcir Ztiworoh – Elephant Dance (Excerpt)
14. 41:40 The Hilliard Ensemble – Veni Creator Spiritus (Comp. Pérotin)
15. 48:40 Fripp & Eno – Wind on Water
16. 54:10 Li Garattoni – Here is Silence
17. 55:50 Roedelius – Wenn der Südwind Weht
18. 59:40 Barbara Buccholz – Öd