If you like…
Brian Eno
Check out Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich ($18, amazon.com). Like Eno’s Music for Airports, this album by one of the granddaddies of minimalism offers a mood rather than a melody, inducing trancelike states of euphoria and introspection. Recordings abound, but the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble CD ($20, amazon.com) is particularly arresting. Just make sure you’re not operating heavy machinery while listening.
If you like…
Sonic Youth
Check out Dark Full Ride by Julia Wolfe ($19, amazon.com). Wolfe has been traversing new sonic landscapes for the guitar, and Thurston Moore recently appeared onstage with her and the rest of the Bang on a Can crew. Although it’s not a direct parallel to Goo or Daydream Nation, the ecstatic freakouts on this album (think nine bagpipes, four drum sets, six pianos and eight double basses) would be right at home with any of Moore’s aural excursions.
If you like…
the Antlers
Check out Little Match Girl Passion by David Lang ($21, amazon.com). Released last year on Harmonia Mundi, the piece won Lang a Pulitzer in 2008. Like Antlers frontman Peter Silberman, Lang’s talent lies in finding delicate beauty in the melancholy. As with the Brooklyn trio’s Hospice, Lang’s Passion is one to listen to while wearing headphones with the lights turned down.
If you like…
Slayer or Meshuggah
Check out Transfiguration by Christopher Rouse, recorded by the Calder Quartet ($18, amazon.com). The Juilliard professor and composer refers to his String Quartet No. 1 as “17 minutes of rage,” and told the Calder Quartet that by agreeing to record the works, they had signed up for “wave after wave of endless, searing pain.” Like Slayer and Meshuggah, Rouse’s loud and intricate pounding can be performed only by true virtuosos.
If you like…
Radiohead
Check out Cortical Songs by John Mattias and Nick Ryan ($17, amazon.com). Thom Yorke joined composers Matthias and Ryan in an inventive reworking of the pair’s brain-wave-inspired piece. Yorke’s bandmate Jonny Greenwood credits composer Olivier Messiaen as a major influence, even incorporating one of the Frenchman’s favorite instruments, the ondes Martenot, into his band’s songbook (“Pyramid Song,” “How to Disappear Completely”).
- Doyle Armbrust
published in Time Out Chicago on September 8th, 2010