Saturday, October 30, 2021

LIX. REICH, Steve: Music for 18 Musicians

LIX. REICH, Steve (1936-       )

Music for 18 Musicians (1974-76)
eighth blackbird
(1:05:55)

Earlier, I spoke about my unhappiness with musical labels, like Minimalism. There are so many variations in musical compositions that it seems a shame that a great work of art gets stuck with any type of label. But society seems to demand it.

Reich wrote this masterpiece based on the idea of phasing. Reich's earlier works -- and those of Terry Riley -- used phasing as a tool to create unusual, distorting effects, like Riley's In C and Reich's It's Gonna Rain.

Here -- for over an hour -- Reich produces a subtler hypnotic feeling by using a large ensemble of players, playing a cycle of 11 different chords, producing a psycho-acoustic effect.

Make available an hour of your life and be transported by music unlike anything else you've ever heard!



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