Tuesday, November 20, 2007

harold budd/ruben garcia/daniel lentz: music for 3 pianos

released: 01-01-1991
09-27-1994
02-21-2006
label: all saints (1991), gyroscope (1994), hannibal (2006)


As the title might suggest this album consists of music written specifically for three pianos - panned left, right and center. The production technique render it appropriate for headphone listening, especially for that "swirling of reverberating notes" effect. That being said it would be a source of great frustration to listen for an exhibition of keyboard virtuosity here. In here simplicity and sparseness is key. After all, this is not a progressive rock record. In fact it is made up of only six pieces with each track under the five minute mark, totaling to only 21+ minutes. That's probably just as long as your standard prog rock keyboard solo. (Don't get me wrong though, I don't hate prog, I just don't have much patience). Fact of the matter is, it took me longer to write this review than to listen to the record.
What you can expect is music to ponder your life by. If Sakamoto can bring me to solitude in some vintage black and white hotel room photograph, Budd, Garcia & Lentz bring me to the streets right outside that hotel, overlooked by the same hotel room window with translucent white curtains. I say this because listening to their album I get that sense of travel (by foot). In fact I can hear the murmurs of passers-by and sidewalk vendors as I listen to the music. So vivid are the street noises that sometimes I could almost swear they are coming out the headphone speakers, embedded into the recording.
It's like being in a lucid dream where you can hear incomprehensible voices or reading a book in which the words elude you, no matter how you strain. Weird I know, but so is the music. Maybe therein lies the similarity - that the listener is advised to not strain to hear the music, but to instead let the music flow by itself into one's consciousness.

harold budd's new albion page
ruben garcia at close tolerance music
daniel lentz's site
read other reviews of this album

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