5. John CageLitany For The Whale
You know, I never went to a conservatory or anything, but I did study a little bit of music theory and stuff in a community college in Oregon. In music studies, Western studies anyway, John Cage is a name that inevitably comes up. I was interested on an intellectual level as a student, but I never actually heard much of John Cage’s music that kind of hit me in the heart, per se. But when I heard ‘Litany For The Whale’, I really found it so meditative and beautiful. I think it’s about twenty minutes long, and it’s just one or two lone voices wordlessly singing this kind of really beautiful series of notes. There’s so much space in it as well. That’s just something that I’ll often just put on just to bring a calm atmosphere into the room. The funny thing is that immediately after that first track, it goes into something pretty harsh and abrasive like sounds of thunder, and you hear someone doing really experimental things with their voice. There’s a number of pieces on there that I really love, there’s another one called ’36 Mesostics re and not re Marcel Duchamp’. Terry Riley is speaking some of the words on that. I love the words and I love his delivery of them as well. I have to be in the mood for it sometimes, but when I am it’s like the perfect thing for me.
