8. Steve ReichMusic for 18 Musicians
Steve Reich changed the world for everyone, especially with 18 Musicians, a pivotal album, a breakthrough. For me, he’s made a sonic painting of infinity. He’s using chords more than he’s used before. I was associated with a minimal music group called Lost Jockey, with Orlando Gough and John Barker and Simon Limbrick and many others. They probably introduced me to the music of Steve Reich, but before this record came. This record is such a huge leap for him as a composer. It’s so awesomely defined, precise. I don’t mean that in a robotic way. It’s so understated but so capable as well.
I hadn’t thought this through until we were chatting but it’s another example of what I was saying about Mr. Wyatt’s vocals, it’s so emotional and so transcendental with its vision of infinity, it’s virtuosic, the performance and the recording, but it’s all hidden. The notes, there’s no sense of diva. It’s an incredible ensemble working together. For me, it’s about infinity, and infinity as a spiritual concept is, again, deep in the Nous Alpha world and something we marvel at. If we’re lucky we use the concept we can grasp of infinity to move us to a new place. For me, that’s what he’s doing with 18 Musicians, he’s saying, ‘Look, it goes on forever.’
