An Album Review 35 years in the making

 

In high school, I read a review of something and the writer described an event as being as 'jarring as encountering a scratch on your new Steve Reich record".  I don't recall what the review was about or who wrote it, but boy do I remember that line!

Well, the next time I was in a record store, I looked for something by this artist whom I had never heard of and found a CD of "The Desert Music" which had only come out a few years earlier.  I flipped it over and read the words 

"Begin, my friend

                 for you cannot,
                                  you may be sure,
take your song,
                 which drives all things out of mind,
                                  with you to the other world."

And then later

    

               "Well, shall we
think or listen? Is there a sound addressed
                 not wholly to the ear?"

(turns out the lyrics are from poems by William Carlos Williams)

I bought the CD on the spot.  When I got home, I discovered an in-depth review of the piece in the liner notes by a critic.  So, as I hit play, I read about how this reviewer pictures music in color and light.  I remember specifically that Mozart to him is a "slow moving barge of bright white light". I think about that line a lot.  Even today.

Years later, I attended a performance where Steve Reich was interviewed and he confessed that he had picked up a book of poems by William Carlos Williams having never heard of him, but just intrigued by the symmetry of his name.  How cool, I thought.

I miss the era of rolling the dice on the spot in a record store, not knowing whether what you were buying was even worth the $14.99 or whether it would be life-transforming.  Now, I google and read at least 3 reviews before I buy a new can opener online.  

If you are willing to spend 48 minutes of focused appreciation, see if The Desert Music transports and transforms you as it did a 15 year Ken Rideout some 35 years ago: