steve reich, gyorgy ligetti, john cage

[djgout]

maybe i'm just a huge dork but these composers no matter how weird their pieces are always seem to make me smile and want to understand their process. my room mate and i are both like this and last night we sat down and figured out how to play *clapping music* so we can be the life of the parties......well still we think it's bad ass. i do still wanna get the notes from piano phase tattooed on my left tricep.....

[Devlars]

FOLKS! WE HAVE ANOTHER ONE! That's awesome....I love Steve Reichs stuff. You should listen to Philip Glass Circles. It's a bunch of Glass music done by Arturo Stalteri...brilliant. I would imagine that it would take more than two people in order to pull off clapping music. Your hands would never forgive you after doing that all night.

[awolski]

20th century art music lovers repruhzent! Cage's stuff rules! I don't have much Cage music but one of my favorites is a collection of music created for Merce Cunningham's dance performances. I think Takehisa Kosugi might be on it as a performer and if you're interested in the stuff you mentioned, Kosugi's music is nice because it has elements of the Cagean stuff and also elements of droney minimalist stuff. His Taj Mahal Travellers have some neat minimal dronescapes. Also, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the British group AMM but their music sometimes sounds like some of Cage's music except it's completely improvised while Cage's music is intensely choreographed. Good stuff either way.

My favorite of Glass' is Glassworks. Super hyperkinetic stuff.

[Devlars]

Glassworks is good. I'll never forget the first time I saw Koyaanisqatsi though. Reichs Music For 18 Musicians and Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon are also really good.

[Red Rockets Glare]

I'd like to give a shout out to my main man La Monte Young!

[djgout]

FOLKS! WE HAVE ANOTHER ONE! That's awesome....I love Steve Reichs stuff. You should listen to Philip Glass Circles. It's a bunch of Glass music done by Arturo Stalteri...brilliant. I would imagine that it would take more than two people in order to pull off clapping music. Your hands would never forgive you after doing that all night.

phillip glass is amazing as well. but clapping music is just 2 people, we've been *Playing* it all day today, god we're dorks

[Devlars]

That's what I mean having other people to give your hands a breather? So you don't walk away from the whole thing looking like you've just smacked somone to death.

[Brian Brock]

A few other good works in this area:

Terry Riley, In C
Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening Band
Just West Coast (this is an album by a guitar/harp duo with pieces by Lou Harrison, Harry Partch, LaMonte Young)
Bang On A Can - Industry (has pieces by Louis Andriessen and David Lang and an awesome solo Cello-thru-tube-screamer thing)
Jim O'Rourke - Bad Timing

Those are all in the vein of weird stuff that people like to listen to, like Glass, Reich, etc...

Then, there's the stuff people don't like to listen to, like:

Iannis Xenakis, La Legend D'Air (great!)
Glenn Branca, Symphony 5
Tony Conrad, there's one with Jim O'Rourke, called like, Slapping Pythagoras (has a great diatribe against Pythagoras in the liner notes, too)
Jim O'Rourke, Terminal Pharmacy


These are just particular pieces that affected me

[awolski]

La Legend D'Eer is another favorite of mine, if you wanna get into electroacoustics. Who doesn't like listening to it? That's crazy talk. But "Orient/Occident" is probably my favorite electroacoustic piece ever.

The concept of LaMonte Young is great, but does anyone have any idea how to find any of his recordings? The only thing I have is that Dream Syndicate "Day of Niagra" CD on Table of the Elements which is very nice, by the way. But the only "official" recordings I've heard of are the ones available from his foundation, where it's like $350 for a box set or something crazy like that.

[joeysimms]

"I have nothing to say and I'm saying it"

[Devlars]

EINSTUERZENDE NEUBAUTEN anyone? I imagine doing a session with them would be quite an experience, "How should I mic this shopping cart?"

[awolski]

They put Kollaps out on CD recently, in a nice digipak package and everything, but it just hurts my ears to listen to it. There are these quiet parts, but every now and then there is a quick, trebly, harsh metal sound that's tons louder than everything else. I actually wished they limited or compressed it more. I guess that's the point, harsh and painful. Which I'm cool with, it just reduces the number of times I listen to it on headphones or in the car.

Good question about the miking though. That would be an incredible tape op article to see! I wonder how articulate those guys would be about their recording experiences and how much detail they could give about those early records.

[housepig]

if anybody missed it, check out the "OHM" compilation on Ellipses Arts records - 3 cd set of early electronic music, incl. Cage, Lucier, Stockhausen, etc. etc.

[inverseroom]

Those three dudes are awesome. One of the best concerts I ever saw was the Philip Glass Ensemble playing live underneath a projection of Koyaanisqatsi. Fantastic. And Ligeti is the best music to seduce someone by if you intend to kill them afterward.

[Ronan]

So I am not the only one that loves this shit!?!?!?!

Glass' Einstien on the Beach is my favorite piece of recorded music of all time (the original 70s version). I got to see the piece live. Almost 5 hours with no intermission and I did not want it to end.

The moment I first felt like "I made it!" was producing a record for Joan LaBarabara. She was the voice on Glass's Music in 12 parts and well as a lot of early Reich stuff. None of my freinds or family had any clue who she was but for me it was sort of like getting to produce the rolling stones or something.