“These days, record reviews tend to operate as pointers and nodes. Where they once offered an immersion into the world of ideas, in an era when anything can be heard through a search and a click, critics are there to tell you that something exists. Aspects of the larger condition are unarguably good – listeners learn to trust their ears and decide for themselves, but with it comes a growing failure to recognize many of the complex fields which draw us in – culture, context, history, and association, to name a few. It isn’t always sound which excites us about the music we love – it is also where it sits, what it represents, and the position it takes. In many cases – when entering through these objects, we don’t intuitively like what we hear. It’s a challenge which demands time and work – willingly taken because of where we encounter it, and its proximity to our sense of self. It is here that we find the great value of art – where we grow, learn, and change. As I sat down to write about the long awaited reissue vinyl of Steve Reich’s  Drumming / Music For Mallet Instruments, Voices And Organ / Six Pianos, I wondered if I needed to do more than let people know it exists. In the history of 20th century Classical music, few works boast equal status. It is iconic – one of the most well know releases in the cannon of Minimalism, and over the course of its life, written about in countless ways. Is there anything left to say? …”
The Hum (Video)
Discogs (Video)
W – Drumming, W – Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ, W – Six Pianos