Thursday, May 24, 2018

Plateaux d'Artifice

Good day and welcome to a birthday post not about the obvious birthday person of May 24th.
That other guy? I've done him many times. No, not sexually. Blogged about him. Yawn.
Not to detract from the Zimmerversary, but today is also the birthday of another, less recognizable, yet equally as transcendent figure.
Today's honoree is renowned for the meditatively still and contemplative, rather than the shrill and condemnatively verbose.
Not that there's anything wrong with the condemnative and the verbose. I tend towards those locations often when I write something.
Earlier this month we tributed Brian Eno, the acknowledged father of Ambient music. Today we pay homage to one of Eno's central collaborators and one of the leading lights of that genre.
To help do that, we have a lush, nearly-two-hour concert from 2004, when our hero was at a career crossroads and contemplating retirement. Luckily for us, Harold Budd -- as gorgeous a melodicist on piano as has existed in our lifetimes -- decided not to stop.
This features Hal -- born this day in 1936 -- and his pals playing a whole slew of his most iconic compositions. The source of this one is unclear -- it seems to come from a 320K web simulcast -- but the sound is not... this could and should be released officially and is sonically indistinguishable from such.
Harold Budd & friends
sound. at REDCAT
Disney/CalArts Theater
Los Angeles, CA
9.18.2004

01 Lirio (1970)
Alex Cline, Gong

02 String Quartet (2001) & String Quartet (2003)
- It's Steeper Near the Roses (for David Sylvian)
- L'enfant perdu
- Chrysalis Nu (to Barney's memory)
- Three Faces West (Billy Al Bengston's)
- Haru Spring
- From the Sea of Changes
- Bandits of Stature
- Llano
- Babylon Balboa
Jeff Gauthier, Johnny Chang - violins
Natalie Brejcha - viola
Jessica Catron - cello

03 At This Moment (2004) & As Long As I Can Hold My Breath (at night) (2001, 2004)
Clive Wright - guitar

04 Islander with A J is Jil Sander
Works from Avalon Sutra (2004)
Works from “the last decade including yesterday”
Harold Budd - piano
Jon Gibson - soprano saxophone, bass flute

05 Opera & Nove Alberi & Sweet Earth Flying (1972, by Marion Brown)
Harold Budd - piano

06 Fragments from 1000 Chords
“a few one-offs”
Harold Budd - piano

Total time: 1:47:47
disc break goes after Track 03

spectral analysis indicates a 320K webstreamed FM broadcast of unknown origin,
perhaps originating from the sassas.org website
I will return on Saturday with another avoidance of an obvious birthday, but if you're smart you'll pull down this delicious, mellifluous, and criminally undercirculated set and let your Thursday be defined by its beauty. All courtesy of the infinitely shimmering Harold Budd, turning 82 today and still tinkling away.--J.