ABANDONED CITIES

While pianist Harold Budd is probably best known to the general music fan for his collaborations with Brian Eno (Ambient 2 and The Pearl), his catalog is deep. Various solo albums in the realms of piano driven Ambient and Classical, along with a slew of collaborations and work done for various films, tv series, and art installations, which is what Abandoned Cities seems to have been originally created for, "ABHASA: Image-Bearing Light by Lita Albuquerque, Harold Budd, and Robert Kramer", but I cannot find much of anything online about this installation.

On Abandoned Cities, Budd turns in two slow moving side long tracks of hypnotic, etheric, brooding, and ultimately bleak and depressive Dark Ambient, before that was even a genre proper. The A side, Dark Star, slowly sweeps along on a bed of mournful, layered, undulating synth drones, some darker and brooding, others a bit lighter and melancholic. It's like weaving your way through a dead, rubble strewn city. This is aided by some occasional guitar textures, slow and dour, almost abrasive, but not noisy. The B side, Abandoned Cities, takes things even slower, more minimal and more melancholic, but not quite as dark, like looking at the sun through grey clouds. If side A was a more intimate, personal look at the city, side B is a bird's eye view of everything, slowly drifting and wafting above the streets and buildings rooves, it's all depressive and introspective, but at arm's length. The bed of layered synth work is still present here, but instead of guitar we have somber, quiet, and extremely minimal piano work as our aid. Neither track really goes anywhere, but that's the point, simply wanting to show this place in your mind's eye for a while.

The album title "Abandoned Cities" could not have been a more perfect choice for this incredible release, same with the artwork, a B&W photo of the upper façade of a building, a teaser for all that is inside. One of the coolest musical experiences I've had comes with this album. Two of my hobbies, that are intertwined with each other, photography and urban exploration, lead me to a great deal of abandoned and interesting places. One of those places was the now demolished Saint Nicholas coal breaker nestled in the hills of Pennsylvania. A towering 6-7 story or higher hulking, industrial behemoth left to rot. Me and my pals had entered and were having a blast exploring and photographing the place. As often happens we tend to separate and wander around on our own. I decided to put the camera and tripod aside for a bit, put some earbuds in and just take a walk around listening to this album. It was an absolutely incredible experience to walk around this grey ironclad, rust flaked site, among old control panels and crunchy, sketchy catwalks. It sounds utterly insane to say but that was one of the most peaceful experiences I've had, either with music or exploring.