2014: The Year in Minimalism

This year, I've decided to publish my album of the year posts as a series of longform reviews. This is the first, covering minimal music - posts on electronic music, jazz and rock are to follow. 

Vijay Iyer is an American music academic with a long history of jazz trio releases. On “Mutations”, his first on ECM, he walks the boundary – which you and I probably never knew existed – between jazz and minimalism of the Steve Reich variety.

“Mutations” is comprised of ten short sections, in which a chamber ensemble of piano, strings and electronics (natch) play fast and slow elements which shift against each other in absorbing ways. The recording is bookended by three slow piano pieces, which don’t grab me – “Mutations” is more than strong enough to stand on its own, but I don’t suppose that the other inclusions detract too much.

Talking of Steve Reich, 2014 saw the release of the début recording of “Radio Rewrite”, performed by Alarm Will Sound. This is a five movement, fifteen minute affair, which ‘reuses’ material from two Radiohead tracks – “Jigsaw Falling into Place” and “House of Cards” - and is probably as near as modern composition comes to a remix.

On the one hand, this will do nothing to counter those who say that Reich has already made his contribution – which is considerable in its influence. Reich has become America’s composer of choice for moments of national remembrance and this piece does feel lightweight compared to, say, “Daniel Variations” or “WTC 9/11”. It also lacks the ambition of landmark compositions such as “Music for Eighteen Musicians” or “The Desert Music”, both personal favourites.

However, “Radio Rewrite” works best when you stop thinking about the context or listening for the quotes and just take it on its own merits. This is very accessible stuff – those new to Reich could do worse that start here. The piece is very much a part of Reich’s unique sound world and one can’t fault him, at this stage in his career, for kicking back and doing something just for the hell of it – this would, in any case, be one definition of minimalism, which is absolutely “l’art pour l’art”.

There are two other pieces on the disk. Vicky Chow provides a fairly pointless reworking of “Six Pianos” – never one of my favourite Reich compositions - as “Piano Counterpoint”, which replaces five of the players with recorded parts. Ho hum. The other is a new version of “Electric Counterpoint” by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, obviously returning the favour.

Greenwood is well known for his tendency to bother ‘serious’ composers, Krzysztof Penderecki being a recent example. Apparently, Greenwood often plays “Electric Counterpoint” at Radiohead gigs – one has to wonder to what sort of reaction.

It’s too tempting to compare this new version to the ‘standard’ interpretation by Pat Methany which appeared on the same disk as the Kronos Quartet’s reading of “Different Trains” in 1989 and my initial impression was unfavourable. Greenwood’s version is much brighter, with a clear, brittle guitar sound with very little sustain, which verges on being cold and clinical. However, I've warmed to it (pun intended). It’s certainly more ‘rock’ were Methany’s is more ‘jazz’ (perhaps another example of that boundary which Vijay Iyer is currently exploring), with significantly more low end. It’s interesting that the piece allows the players’ respective backgrounds to come through so strongly.

Michael Nyman is the man who applied the term minimalism to Reich’s music – Reich wasn't pleased, but the designation stuck - and 2014 also saw the premier performance of his “Symphony Number 11: Hillsborough Memorial” at Liverpool Cathedral. It’s more than unfortunate that it took twenty-five years to get to a point at which the service of remembrance could happen, but we’re here to talk about the music and the fact that MN Records have released a nicely packaged recording of the piece.

The composition is very much in the minimalist idiom, which is probably why some of it feels a bit generic. If you’d told me that the third movement was from Glass’s trilogy – say one of the more dramatic sections of Akhnaten - I’d have believed you. In the accompanying essay, Nyman admits that some of the material for the piece was recycled, especially the fourth movement which has appeared in a number of guises.

On the upside, sentimentality is avoided, despite the presence of a youth choir, who sound rather like a celestial terrace sing-along, especially in the second movement. Kathryn Rudge gets stuck into the “Singing of the Names” with a gusto that one imagines could easily tip over into anger, which is not wholly inappropriate.

This is a worthy addition to Nyman’s oeuvre which will probably suffer the fate of its earlier incarnations. It’s difficult to know how to relate to such a piece as entertainment, shorn of its original context as part of an act of remembrance, which is the only way that it can have any longevity.

Finally, we turn to another version of Terry Riley’s “In C”, which was released this year. This time, it was the turn of Africa Express to have a crack at this old chestnut of high minimalism, re-branding it as “In C Mali”.

The first signs weren't good. The involvement of famous World Music aficionados - step forwards Damon Albarn, Brian Eno – didn't bode well and the piece features an odd mix of African and European instrumentation. One also has to wonder why the Arts Council is funding yet another recording of an American composition created in Africa and Germany by an international cast and crew, but maybe I'm being a bit parochial.

In fact I probably am, because the results are surprisingly good, easily surpassing last year’s rather tired attempt by Adrian Utley and friends. The instruments mesh creating a shimmering, slowly morphing wall of sound that demands attentive listening. The introduction of a spoken word section in the middle of the forty-odd minute rendition works really well and adds to the atmosphere of place, which is maintained despite the fact that the finished recoding was hacked together in a studio in Munich. I find it difficult to believe that the rise and fall of the performance was in no way premeditated, but I actually find that I don’t care and this is probably my favourite recorded version of “In C” since Ars Nova’s vocal arrangement from 2006.