https://soundcloud.com/rootstrata/templar/s-yskB1
― geeta, Wednesday, 3 July 2013 22:16 (ten years ago) link
oh that's a good one. happy it's getting an edition. Wanders a little more than La Bella Vista, where every second counts, but it's nice to wander too -- that was a good year
dragged Bandits of Stature out last week, his CD of new string quartets from last year -- growing on me
― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 3 July 2013 22:19 (ten years ago) link
re: ZS's q about alice coltrane -- have never read budd explicitly mention her, but i imagine he is familiar. marion brown from pavilions of dreams played w/ john coltrane, fwiw.
― tylerw, Wednesday, 3 July 2013 22:25 (ten years ago) link
He's got a 2CD career retrospecitve ("Wind In Lonely Fences") and a 7 disc (or is it vinyl only?) box "Buddbox" covering, I think, his last 30 years.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Tuesday, 5 November 2013 01:11 (ten years ago) link
The Eno-related record label All Saints (run, I think, by Eno's brother-in-law) is doing a big reissue campaign, and Buddbox is just the 7 Budd CDs that Opal/Gyroscope/All Saints originally released between 1988 and 1996: The Serpent (In Quicksilver), Abandoned Cities, The White Arcades, By the Dawn's Early Light, Music for 3 Pianos (w/Daniel Lentz & Ruben Garcia), Through the Hill (w/Andy Partridge) and Luxa. Doesn't look like there's anything new in it.
Serpent, Abandoned Cities and Through the Hill are coming out on vinyl too.
No track list on Wind in Lonely Fences yet.
All Saints has already rereleased a couple of Laraaji CDs plus a 2-CD retrospective Celestial Music, at least half of which looks to be previously cassette-only tracks.
― Hideous Lump, Tuesday, 5 November 2013 04:00 (ten years ago) link
got promos of both today, not sure if tracklists match
― the late great, Tuesday, 5 November 2013 06:07 (ten years ago) link
Thanks for the clarification, Lamp. I don't own anything but have heard enough to be interested in the 2CD comp. Tracklisting for the retrospective:
Disc: 11. The Oak Of The Golden Dreams (1970)2. Bismillahi'Rrahman'Rrahim (1978) with Marion Brown & Gavin Bryars3. Wind In Lonely Fences (1980) with Brian Eno4. Wanderer (1981)5. Dark Star (1984)6. The Pearl (1984) with Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois
Disc: 21. Ooze Out And Away, Onehow (1986) with Cocteau Twins2. Ice Floes In Eden (1986)3. Algebra Of Darkness (1988)4. A Child In A Sylvan Field (1991)5. The Messenger (1992) with Ruben Garcia & Daniel Lentz6. Hand 20 (1994) with Andy Partridge7. She's By The Window (1994) with Zeitgeist8. Nove Alberi (1996)9. Adult (2003) with John Foxx10. Arabesque 2 (2004)11. How Distant Your Heart (2007) with Robin Guthrie12. Mars And The Artist (2011)
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Tuesday, 5 November 2013 14:21 (ten years ago) link
Not a fan of New Age
http://www.factmag.com/2014/03/03/art-without-risk-is-pointless-a-conversation-with-avant-garde-composer-harold-budd/
― groovypanda, Thursday, 6 March 2014 11:11 (ten years ago) link
Loved this video w Clive Wright I came across on YT a few weeks ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXUwmJwO_C4&app=desktop
I think what I loved the most was that they appear to have played this on a whim in their living room.
― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, 11 February 2017 15:12 (seven years ago) link
that's great! I am thinking Pensive Aphrodite is their master work together.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Saturday, 11 February 2017 16:26 (seven years ago) link
Interestingly, it was completely improvised and the first thing they worked on together:
The very first piece Harold Budd and Clive Wright worked on became the 30 minute opening track of A Song of Lost Blossoms. Called “Pensive Aphrodite,” it’s a pure improvisation for electric guitar and keyboard. Harold says they didn’t establish any parameters, including key signature, before playing.Harold Budd: Not a thing. I think probably the key I chose because it’s the first sound you hear.Clive Wright:”Pensive Aphrodite” is a performance because it was actually recorded straight to a two-track. We ended up recording it straight to CD. It was like one of those cuts, it just goes straight to a recording CD player.
Harold Budd: Not a thing. I think probably the key I chose because it’s the first sound you hear.
Clive Wright:”Pensive Aphrodite” is a performance because it was actually recorded straight to a two-track. We ended up recording it straight to CD. It was like one of those cuts, it just goes straight to a recording CD player.
― Naive Teen Idol, Tuesday, 14 February 2017 16:23 (seven years ago) link
The live album Agua is excellent and (provided there was no studio tweaking later) shows that he really could recreate those sounds on stage.
Just downloadedAgua. I enjoy it as well. Apparently it was recorded in 1989 on whatever passed for his tour following The White Arcades. I gather from Discogs that most of the titles on the CD pressing are actually incorrect. But does anyone know what the deal with this was? Is this actually live? There are lots of fade-ins and -outs that suggest not.
― Naive Teen Idol, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:27 (seven years ago) link
The Little Glass, with Akira Rabelais, is quite lovely. Disc #1 consists of both lapidary and protracted works for solo piano by both musicians, reminiscent of Alexander Malter's self-perpetuating variations on Arvo Pärt's Für Alina. Disc #2 is all A. Rabelais: he disorients and refracts disc #1's acoustic material until it others itself—far more than a photographic negative, as it were.
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:38 (seven years ago) link
Agua - Holy shit, there's video! It was a whole Opal Records artists show: Harold Budd (2 tracks), Laraaji (2), Michael Brook (3), Roedelius (1), Roger Eno (1).
The video is in 3 parts, about 45 minutes total. Here's part 1--
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJLtB74xcQQ
― Hideous Lump, Thursday, 16 February 2017 04:30 (seven years ago) link
Wowza, indeed. A big of snooping around online suggests that this was recorded in a cave(!!) on the Canary Islands as part of the Opal Evening shows these guys all took part in around this time. There's a nice description of what Eno was doing w these shows from David Shephard's book here.
You can see Budd playing a bit from The Moon and the Melodies on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Wfu3o0gqo
For this show, it was pretty clear Budd was playing piano over tapes -- not a bad thing, actually as the backing tracks are quite delicate and not surprising insofar as he was more or less touring The White Arcades at this point, for which there was a lot of overdubbing. Worth noting that the rest of the show is really good as well. Laraaji's performance is really solid -- and processed either or live or in post-production by Michael Brook, who seems to have executive produced this show and remixed the audio (Brook also produced Laraaji's Flow Goes The Universe (1992) and Roger Eno's excellent Between Tides from 1988). Seems that Roger Eno and Laraaji's performances were released on a record called Islands. Also, kind of unrelated: the Roedelius piece in this show is "Lustwandel" from 1981.
Given all these excerpts, one wonders if there is more video floating around somewhere ...
― Naive Teen Idol, Thursday, 16 February 2017 14:34 (seven years ago) link
Thanks for linking that interview up there, Naive Teen... this part cracked me up:
Clive Wright: Candylion was conceived by Harold Budd as a second album in a triptych , a desert triptych . So, thematically, it’s about the desert.Harold Budd: I don’t really think so. They are not. They have nothing to do with the landscape. I don’t feel wedded to the landscape that way. That faux romance of the western deserts, I don’t buy it.
I think the Budd/Wright trilogy (Song for Lost Blossoms, Candylion, and Little Windows) is very deserty. But whatever, it's awesome.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Thursday, 16 February 2017 14:56 (seven years ago) link
u kno u are truly on an ambient tip when u think "I need to skip this harold budd song, he is just striking those piano keys too aggressively!"
Brian Eno delenda est!
― Dan I., Tuesday, 13 February 2018 20:51 (six years ago) link
lol I think Budd is kinda mad that his work gets classified as ambient
― brimstead, Tuesday, 13 February 2018 21:01 (six years ago) link
authorial intent means nothing!
― Dan I., Tuesday, 13 February 2018 21:09 (six years ago) link
(tbf to budd tho, i am repulsed by everything else in the world that is called 'ambient'--he alone is a shiny muted jewel)
― Dan I., Tuesday, 13 February 2018 21:11 (six years ago) link
hahaha, watch Clive Wright's Youtube videos sometime
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Tuesday, 13 February 2018 21:55 (six years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYJkH6mdbAY
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Tuesday, 13 February 2018 21:58 (six years ago) link
it's got the desert, and UFOs, and a dog... I love this video so much
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Tuesday, 13 February 2018 22:00 (six years ago) link
harold budd, internationally known, worked with lots of famous people, will be in the history books forever re: ambient music
but yet...is he the most underrated musician...OF ALL TIME?
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 20 January 2019 16:52 (five years ago) link
if there was a terrible library of alexandria-style fire and all of the records of the 1970s were about to burn up, i think i might seriously select Pavilion of Dreams as the one piece of music from the decade that NEEDS to be saved.
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 20 January 2019 16:54 (five years ago) link
Amen, KM
― So, This Leaked (Capitaine Jay Vee), Sunday, 20 January 2019 19:12 (five years ago) link
so often he's been mentioned as an afterthought to Eno (although, anecdotally, that seems to be becoming less common when i see his name mentioned). but Eno could never compose anything like Pavilion of Dreams - it's from a different language or planet entirely. i'm amazed at how cohesive Pavilion is, over the course of 47-minutes, despite covering so much musical.
and the Rosetti Noise/Chrystal Garden & a Coda section, especially, is some of the most beautiful music of the 20th century
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 20 January 2019 19:33 (five years ago) link
it's a testament to the greatness of the entire thing that Rosetti is pure aural bliss but it took years and years of listening for me to recognize it on its own - by the time it arrives in the recording, 25 minutes in, i'm almost always lost in entrancement. it has a nearly psychotropic effect, this album
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 20 January 2019 19:35 (five years ago) link
it's also, without fail, one of the few albums i own that makes everyone who hears it (anyone who dares set foot in my tiny apartment, that is) say "what IS this?". i was on a long car ride a few months ago and put it on quietly when a passenger in the backseat fell asleep. when he woke up later he said "what WAS that we were listening to?"
it's like the incredibly subdued, peaceful album equivalent of the high fidelity/beta band scene
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 20 January 2019 19:37 (five years ago) link
eh, he's ok, not sure about most underrated. he's found his level.
― the word dog doesn't bark (anagram), Sunday, 20 January 2019 19:42 (five years ago) link
album: classicvocals: dud
― Paul Ponzi, Monday, 21 January 2019 00:21 (five years ago) link
As wonderful as Pavilion of Dreams may be. It is definitely very exquisite slumber music. But my fave has always been Plateaux of Mirror. The aural equivalent of jumping in a bed of cottonwool, the translation of the absinth experience into sound. Wooly, otherworldly bliss. How I love that piano sound.
― Ich bin kein Berliner (alex in mainhattan), Monday, 21 January 2019 19:09 (five years ago) link
i listened to 'lovely thunder' after recently rewatching the first twin peaks and couldn't believe how similar the vibe to badalmenti's soundtrack was. i know comparing things to twin peaks is super boring but the similarity, to me, was remarkable. also it was good if a bit cheesy
also the pavilion vocals are great! the pearl is really good too. also will stan hard for parts of 'avalon sutra'
― Vapor waif (uptown churl), Monday, 21 January 2019 19:41 (five years ago) link
that hourlong mix of 'as long as i can hold my breath' is so good
― Karl Malone, Monday, 21 January 2019 19:42 (five years ago) link
The Little Glass with Akira Rabelais is still my favourite.
― pomenitul, Monday, 21 January 2019 19:44 (five years ago) link
Xpost exactly. I could listen to that all day
― Vapor waif (uptown churl), Monday, 21 January 2019 20:10 (five years ago) link
RIP
― Stop the tape I got spittle all over my moustache. (Talcum Mucker), Tuesday, 8 December 2020 20:14 (three years ago) link
Fuck
― A Scampo Darkly (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 8 December 2020 20:16 (three years ago) link
wait. . . really??? source???
― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Tuesday, 8 December 2020 20:20 (three years ago) link
Man, this is really sad.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 8 December 2020 20:20 (three years ago) link
A friend of his announced on FB he died last night.
― Stop the tape I got spittle all over my moustache. (Talcum Mucker), Tuesday, 8 December 2020 20:21 (three years ago) link
aaargh
Moon & The Melodies LP is sitting about 5 feet away from me as I type this.
― howls of non-specificity (sleeve), Tuesday, 8 December 2020 20:33 (three years ago) link
So very saddened by this news.
― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Tuesday, 8 December 2020 20:37 (three years ago) link
oh no! don't know as many of his records as i feel i should tbh, but i did see him play once as part of jah wobble's solaris project with jaki liebezeit, bill laswell and graham haynes
― kites aren't fun (NickB), Tuesday, 8 December 2020 20:47 (three years ago) link
Ah shit. Rip.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Tuesday, 8 December 2020 20:50 (three years ago) link
cheers to him for a long and prolific life, and a legacy of great records I still listen to all the time
― thousand-yard spiral stairs (f. hazel), Tuesday, 8 December 2020 20:55 (three years ago) link
84! He played a blinder. I'm going to listen to The Pavilion of Dreams all night.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Tuesday, 8 December 2020 20:57 (three years ago) link
RIP — he gave so much, don't think I've heard a bad Budd record.
― tylerw, Tuesday, 8 December 2020 21:02 (three years ago) link
― Karl Malone
i made a mistake above, corrected it now.
RIP Harold Budd. you added so much to the lives of so many
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, 8 December 2020 21:32 (three years ago) link
A true genius. Just had this come out last Friday, a full collaboration with Guthrie (recorded in 2013)
https://robinguthrie.bandcamp.com/album/another-flower
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 8 December 2020 21:35 (three years ago) link
Great write-up for Perhaps, Naive Teen Idol, thanks for sharing. It's one of his finest imo.
― A Scampo Darkly (Le Bateau Ivre), Thursday, 10 December 2020 09:25 (three years ago) link
3 track stretch "The Plateaux of Mirror/Above Chiangmai/An Arc of Doves" on repeat forever
since I bought it in 1980, in my first batch of Eno-related records, The Plateaux Of Mirror has continued to be my fave album of all time.
The White Arcades, which conjures such a magical atmosphere. Even with cheap synths, the man was peerless.
"The Kiss" in particular has always seemed like a peak track from someone whose music is so consistently strong that getting lost in whole albums is usually the best way to go.
― Paul, Thursday, 10 December 2020 21:36 (three years ago) link
His music, as I get older (& sentimental), is the most likely to bring me to tears.
― a certain derecho (brownie), Thursday, 10 December 2020 22:53 (three years ago) link
Here's an older John Foxx interview about working with Harold Budd.
https://thequietus.com/articles/23241-john-foxx-track-by-track
― brownie, Sunday, 20 December 2020 16:36 (three years ago) link