TERRY RILEY

Terry Riley's In C is a modernistic piece of art from the mid 20th century. This is very progressive music and inspired a lot of musicians afterwards. I have to capitulate for it. Well it's rather monotonic and hard listened music but it's easy to hear how intelligent it is. Even if it sounds monotonic it changes a lot from the first minute to the fourty-second. The record features a bunch of great musicians. Terry Riley himself plays saxophone. What carries this music is the woodwind and brass instruments and a marimba that lies in the background the all the time. This is sounds from a modern time and sounds from the city. I got some flashbacks from the Medieval period in some moments. This tells us how music can be, totally wrong but also right. It's honest and almost religious in it's approach. I wouldn't consider this as my kind of music but I have to admit this is quality. It could also be a record that I will appreciate more in the future.

OK, so you don't get to hear any guitars or drums. However, you get to hear some truly revolutionary music here.

In his book 'The Ambient Century' an Irish writer Mark J. Prendergast claims the album to be closely related to ambient or just being ambient. Well, the first track isn't really ambient from my perspective. The second track possesses this huge emphasis on tone, but it's too dynamic and intense to be regarded as purely ambient. Also, some time ago I've read in Wikipedia that these two compositions feature just intonation. I don't trust Wikipedia, so if you are seeking music that prominently features this kind of intonation, beware. Now, let's closely examine the character of the music on the record.

The title track is more than just a dense interplay of organ and synth parts; it's a vehicle for entertainment. Most of the parts on the track are so fast that they sound funny, like some kind of a joke on Christmas music, so don't even bother memorizing any of the melodies on it. These melodies could be visually associated with liquid jets, if it helps as an appreciation tip. However, it is groovy, so you might as well bob your head to it. Yes, it's lengthy, and the track is for people who can stand numerous repetitions of the same groove.

The second track is my favorite. I was really enthralled with the music when I heard it on the BBC documentary 'Prog Rock Britannia'. Now that I found out who was the guilty one of this music and what album it came from, I can enjoy 'Poppy Nogood and his Phantom Band' in its entirety, and it's really worth it; take my word for it. In a few different and very bizarre ways the music is quite emotional and entertaining at the same time. To my certain knowledge not a lot of musicians managed to pull off something like this. It's amazing what you can do with those echo machines. Very impressive for 1967. First, there is this track; then there is Pink Floyd's "Meddle". Unbelievable.

Ratings/comments (if you have to ask):

1. 'A Rainbow in Curved Air' - *** ; 2. 'Poppy Nogood and his Phantom Band' - *****

Stamp: 'I like it.'

Adam Harrington, son of the violinist David Harrington, was sixteen when he suddenly died for a blood clot. This is a requiem written by Terry Riley in his memory and performed by the Kronos Quartet, a strings ensemble of which David Harrington is a member.

There's much of classic contemporary in this composition, in the darkest passages it reminds to authors like the Estonian Arvo Part, but in the same time it keeps the minimalistic approach of Terry Riley. 40 years are passed since "In C", but the trademark of the American genius is still evident.

The Requiem is divided in three parts, then the fourth track is a piano solo and the only track performed by Terry Riley.

The first movement is based on a sequence of four notes continuously ascending. This music is full of melancholy, at 2:30 minutes there's a pizzicato that gives the impression of somebody climbing a stair. The tempo increases as well as the dissonances that are the ony thing that identifies the epoch of the composition. Without dissonances this string quartet could seem baroque. After the pizzicato the music gets its identity. Of course there's not a melody. It works as a succession of moments/motifs, which raise to compulsive or quiet down to contemplative. Close your eyes and watch Adam following his path.

The second movement, "Cortejo Funebre en el monte Diablo" translated means "Funeral Procession to the Devil's Mountain", that's the place where Adam died. This movement starts with chaotic percussions. It has to be dark, but the brasses make it grotesque. Terry Riley clarified that he was inspired by Jazz funeral marches in the New Orleans stile. If the purpose was giving the idea of a procession he has met his target. A weird procession of grotesque figures, like in some medieval representations of Death.

The third movement is the proper Requiem. The two pizzicato notes represent the sillabes of Adamd's name....imagine the violin crying A-dam, A-dam.... The glissato of the other strings works as a lament. A very dark composition on which the violin cries all its pain (don't forget that the violinist is the dead boy's father). The fiddlestick is like a saw which saws out the pain. To be honest I don't know how much this album can fit into PA, as it's mainly contemporary classic, but it's so intense and emotional that I think any progger can enjoy it if it's approached in the right moment.

"The Philosopher Hand" is a very sad piano composition written and performed by Terry Riley. The story is that at the time of Adam's death Riley was working on a tribute to the Indian philosopher Pandit Pran Nath. This man attended to the Funeral and took David Harrington's head. He later said that it was the softer hand he had ever held. This episode is what inspired this slow, sad and intense piano piece.

A masterpiece of calssic contemporary, not of prog rock, but it can be an excellent addition. 5 stars if this was a classical music site. Here just 4.

Without question this is one of the earliest Electronic albums and I would also include Holger Czukay's "Canaxis" album from the same year (1969) in this category. We get two side long suites from this innovative American. "A Rainbow In Curved Air" opens with organ as these hyper sounding synth-like expressions come in around a minute.They sound like they swallowed helium.They stop after 6 1/2 minutes as the organ continues. It sounds like percussion before 9 1/2 minutes then we get a more powerful sound before 11 minutes.It settles back a minute later as percussion and organ lead.The hyper synth-like sounds are back to end it. "Poppy Nogood And The Phantom Band" opens with atmosphere that builds until we get wave after wave overwelming us. A deep hum comes in before 5 1/2 minutes and takes over. Other sounds join in. A powerful atmosphere arrives 10 1/2 minutes then we get these horn expressions that take over and stay until 21 minutes in as atmosphere ends it. This is certainly a must for Electronic collectors out there or anyone who is a big fan of that genre.

Providing sounds 20 years ahead of its time - literally, there's points where you'd swear those were crisp 80s-era digital synths playing - A Rainbow In Curved Air is, of course, an inspirational model for the electronic scene, laying the groundwork for every synthesiser wizard with a perchant for side-long tracks afterwards. What's particularly notable about the title track is how busy it is - this is not a classic era Klaus Schulze composition with glacier-like slabs of electronics moving at a sedate and relaxing pace, there's a lot going on at any particular time. At points it reminds me of Mike Oldfield - check out the organ that kicks in at just over six and a half minutes in and you'll see what I mean. The second track, Pappy Nogood and the Phantom Band, is a free jazz composition reminiscent of some of Robert Wyatt's early solo work that, again, manages to introduce sufficient variation that it never becomes boring. Proof that not only was Terry Riley one of the first to play electronic music, he was also one of the first to play it well.

It's hard finding the right words to speak of the genius of Terry Riley. This third album which follows the great "In C", is even better that its predecessor. Instead of minimalistic contemporary classic music we have a purely electronic performance. As In C, this "Rainbow in Curved Air", from which the omonimous Canterbury's band took its name, is based on major chords. There are no percussions of any kind, but this composition has a rhythm and a tempo. The difference with In C is that there are less repetitions. The organ interlude after 6 minutes leads to changes that are not only variations. There's a "relativistic" version of the cover sleeve that's pink with a rainbow split in two parts over a pink sky made of graph paper. It gives the idea of what a "curved air" can be.

The B side hosts "Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band". It starts with an organ crescendo. This track is more similar in the structure to the famous "In C" as it's Hortophonic. Overdubbed sax, loops, it's a synthesis of what we now call electronic music. The absence of rhythm gives a sense of "liquidity" to the organ background that after 6 minutes is left alone. Over it there are sounds that make it similar to a mantra. The "Tibet Suite" of Lucia Hwong has many contact points with this suite, but even if this part can sound tibetan, Terry Riley is closer to the jazz atmospheres than to the himalayan heights, so when brass-like sounds come over the organ it sounds jazzy. Think to a more artsy relative like Blade Runner Blues. Then for some time we have just an organ chord until the jazzy or tibetan part restarts. More chaotic and electronic this time. The essence of the composition doesn't change, but it has different "colours". It's after about 13 minutes from the start that we can clearly hear the sax. The basic chord is now minor, and even if from a perspective it adds a bit of dramaticity, from another it's quite sad music and can be a little boring, but just try to imagine Miles Davis playing his trumpet on this base. The theme doesn't change much until the end, there are true or electronic instruments coming and going until the organ is left alone, and the song is over.

Is it an essential masterpiece? I think so, specially if you like Krautrock or Progressive Electronic. This album and its predecessor are where it all started.

This is where a lot of things in modern music began. When Terry Riley composed in C I was just two years old, so I have to admit that I have discovered it recently.

It's an unusual composition in classical sense. I have seen a print of the musical score: it's just a chord of C major. Eight notes repeated for a discretional amount of time by a discretional amount of instruments of a discretional type, starting each one from discretional moments. Of course the length of the notes is discretional.

The discretion is decided by the director.

Little variations over repetitions (Heterophony). Isn't this the same kind of "structure" that we can find in German psychedelics like Tangerine Dream, Edgar Froese and so on?

The fact of it being made of a major chord, makes it light. I'm reviewing the execution recorded in 1968, but with a score like this you can imaine how many very different versions of it can be found. Wikipedia mentions 24 official releases and one of them is the one made by Acid Mothers Temple (They did also "in D" and "in E" on the same album). Sooner or later I'll review that version, too.

It has been defined as "minimalistic" music. I don't know how to define it but I think it's where a lot of today's art music is from.

Is it progressive? I don't know, but it's a masterpiece.

The New York Minimalist scene is often summed up in the trifecta of three popular composers, Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Terry Riley. Of the three, Riley has arguably been the most overtly experimental in his compositions, with groundbreaking pieces like "In C" and his pioneering use of tape delays to create overdubs in live performances. His music also tends to contain an element of spirituality, and like the old hippy that he is, he has not neglected the world of Eastern mysticism.

Shri Camel is Riley's exploration of the techniques he learned from years of studying Indian ragas. Indeed, his music has often been lauded as ideal for use in meditation. However, he has incorporated these techiques into his own style of composition and the music does not, in itself, sound particularly Indian. There are no sitars or tablas present, yet the complexity and form of the raga is present throughout and the pieces are at times extremely involved, with up to sixteen lines of counterpoint happening at once.

The album consists of four lengthy pieces, each performed live in the studio by Riley on a Yamaha organ, resulting in a musical pallette that is somewhat monochromatic. Riley uses a similar technique to that which Brian Eno and Robert Fripp put to great use in the seventies, looping his performance and adding parts on top of it in real time. If done wrecklessly, this can result in aural chaos that is impossibly to make sense of, but Riley has been practicing the method for decades and takes care to maintain transparency across the various lines. He also differentiates the parts by changing the settings on his organ, altering timbres and percusiveness so that the listener can distinguish his phrasing. This gives the music more depth and color, wile still maintaining a unity of sound across all four pieces.

The other unique aspect of Shri Camel is the fact that Riley has tuned his instrument using the "Just Intoneation" system which, in contrast to the equal temperment tuning used in 99.9% of Western Music, follows more closely the physical overtone series found in nature. The difference, in terms of sound, is that "Just Intonation" sounds slightly alien to the practiced ears of a modern Westerner. It strikes us as ever so slightly "off." This can be disconcerting at first, but once you are able to let go of your preconcieved notions about tuning and appreciate sound for sound's sake, it comes as a welcome relief from the sameness of the music we hear every day.

Shri Camel is a wonderful example of what Riley does best, and while it may prove difficult listening to the average person due to its unusual tuning system and reliance on a single keyboard instrument for its entire duration, it will reward those with patience by providing them with a gentle beauty not eaily found in the music of today.

Although best known for his raga-rock like virtuoso improvisations on electronic keyboards, Terry Riley still finds time to return to his original calling, that of a university trained contemporary concert hall composer. Riley is hardly a dilettante in this field, Salome Dances for Peace is probably one of the finest string quartets composed in the last half of the 20th century. Those who are only familiar with Riley's Indian influenced repeating minimalist electronic keyboard solos may be in for a few surprises here. While fellow minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass remain predictable in their approach, Riley breaks from pure minimalism on this piece and turns to other influences for inspiration. Much of Salome Dances is inspired by folk dance music as well as other composers who use folk elements. Bartok's intense driving Hungarian string quartets are an obvious reference as well as American William Grant Still's rhythmic rustic blues influenced string compositions. Even 19th century folk influenced composers such as Moussorgsky and Dvorak seem to be a root inspiration for some of this music.

The brilliant Kronos String Quartet provides the requisite fiddling and string pluckin to pull off this high brow long haired affair. Kronos is probably one of the few classically trained quartets who can provide the relentless rock like rhythmic drive that makes Terry Riley pieces unique in the world of contemporary composition. Despite his classification as a minimalist, Terry Riley takes his Salome Dances far beyond the confines of style into beautifully complex and rhythmically intense compositions that are uniquely his own

— First review of this album —

Of the three electronic Terry Riley records I own (Rainbow in Curved Air, Shri Camel and this one; Descending Moonshine Dervishes) this one is probably my least favorite. Its not a bad record, just not as good as the other two. Recorded six years after the groundbreaking Rainbow, and five years prior to the more complicated and ornate Shri Camel, Dervishes can't compete with the other two because it is a live album with no overdubs which limit's the complexity of Riley's interweaving modal lines. To his credit, Riley uses tape loop echoes to sound like approximately three Terry Rileys, but its still no match for the rich tapestry of his studio albums.

The usual Riley ingredients are here; a crystal clear Yamaha organ tuned to Terry's ancient Asiatic just intonation playing layers of raga like improvisations in the right hand while the left hand provides repeating ostinatos in somber half notes for accompaniment. Its hard to tell which parts are Terry live and which parts are tape loops, his technique in this area is flawless. The overall effect is somewhat similar to a live version of Riley's previous Rainbow release. This is a beautiful and meditative record that only pales when compared to Riley's more developed works, but still, if you enjoy Rainbow in Curved Air, you will probably find much to like here.