█ █
█ █
█ █
█ █ k l a n g w e r k
█ █
=============================================================================
artist : Steve Reich
album : Reich Remixed
year : 1999
genre : Minimalism
label : Nonesuch Records
=============================================================================
supplier : Spearhead
ripper : Spearhead
rls-date : 23/03/00
encoder : Fhg Radium MP3 codec v1.263
quality : 192k/44100
=============================================================================
01 Music for 18 Musicians (Coldcut Remix)
02 Eight Lines (Howie B Remix)
03 The Four Sections (Andrea Parker Remix)
04 Megamix (Tranquility Bass Remix)
05 Drumming (Mantronik Maximum Drum Formula)
06 Proverb (Nobukazu Takemura Remix)
07 Piano Phase (D Note's Phased & Konfused Mix)
08 City Life (DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid Open Circuit)
09 Come Out (Ken Ishii Remix)
10 The Desert Music (freQ NASTY & B.L.I.M. Remix)
10 tracks (1:09:00)
=============================================================================
Before disco, DJ's, bpm's, and drum machines, when the choice was
simply the four guys with guitars or the fat lady singing Verdi,
Steve Reich started working with tape loops. He imagined, or maybe
stumbled over, the explosion of sound that tape recorders, turn-
tables, samplers, and synthesizers would one day unleash.
It starts like this: Reich is out in the park in San Fransisco,
walking around with his tape recorder. He records a preacher lay-
ing it down about Noah and the flood. Later, in his studio, the
tape loops he made accidentaly go out of synch, exposing the sounds
between the sounds, magical pulsations that he wasn't looking for,
sounds that set his ears on fire and put his mind in a trance-like
state. Those heavenly 'out of synch' tape pieces ("Come Out" and
"It's Gonna Rain"), remixes of sorts, were about to start a revolu-
tion that would be called pulse music, phase music, beat music,
pattern music, and finally, minimalism.
Though Reich never returned to writing pure tape music from the
1960's influenced him in a novel way. Many of the pieces that fol-
lowed tried to imitate the mechanical 'out of synchness' that was
created by those machines, but for live players. "Piano Phase" re-
quires performers to create this 'out of synchness' by having one
of the pianists gradually speed up the melody s/he is playing while
the other pianist continues to play the same melody at the original
speed. It's difficult to pull off, but when it happens, acoustic
instruments are the source of the magic previously created by tape
recorders. Technology changed the way Reich thought about it,
wrote for and performed on acoustic instruments.
Reich knew classical musicians of the German Romantic tradition
would find it impossible to perform his early pieces. He started
his own ensemble, trained his own musicians, carted around tons of
percussion equipment and waited for someone to notice. And people
did notice. Steve Reich changed music by insisting that music
change.
In thirty-five years, Reich has moved quite a distance from his
early hardcore sound sculptures to a refined music one might even
call lush. His music has filtered into the consciousness of out
society, so much so that has been copied and distilled into music
now heard everywhere, much the same way the patterns on your bath-
room wall have been lifted from a Van Gogh.
It's not only that the world has accepted Reich's developed style,
which features various combinations of tuned percussion, keyboards
and voices, but also that technology itself is now in an exalted
state. What takes center stage are DJ's themselves, spinning beats
on vinyl. The new viruoso plays with turntables and a mixer, and
what's more, noise is in. Mass culture has finally caught up to
and embraced the fringe ideas that Reich was exploring in the
1960's.
Our rapid communications system and lightning fast dissemination
of information is part of what makes possible the kind of cosmic
justice this album brings. On this record, a new generation of
British, Japanese and American DJ's have come together to re-mix
music by the original re-mixer. None of these musicians was born
when Reich started working, and only some of them know how much the
world of mixing and re-mixing has to do with this man. Reichs mu-
sic has now become the source material for a new generation of cre-
ative musicians who are using methods he started experimenting with
four decades ago.
Michael Gordon, New York City, 1998
=============================================================================
greetings to sweetbeats, quadroqhenia, sour, mindscape, emission
=============================================================================