Steve Reich

[loosefish]

Anyone a fan?

I can see how his stuff might drive the average prog listener up the wall (and i'm also someone who loves a bit (or a lot) of complexity and fiddly bits in the stuff i listen to), but once i tuned into it i loved more or less everything i heard. Music for 18 musicians and Desert music in particular are mindblowing pieces that transport me somewhere else when they're playing.

[Mister Triscuits]

Yeah, I'm a fan. I first heard about Reich from an article in Rolling Stone in 1971 recommending off-the-beaten-path classical albums. That's where I first learned about tape loops. It was years before I actually heard "Come Out" and "It's Gonna Rain," which were described in that piece.

[loosefish]

A couple of shorter pieces -
Octet


Six Marimbas


The Four Sections (full orchestra)

[loosefish]

Yeah, I'm a fan. I first heard about Reich from an article in Rolling Stone in 1971 recommending off-the-beaten-path classical albums. That's where I first learned about tape loops. It was years before I actually heard "Come Out" and "It's Gonna Rain," which were described in that piece.

I actually haven't given the early tape looping experiments enough of my time, but thanks for the kick up the arse to try again. Piano Phase is another one that i've been meaning to revisit.

[at least 100 dead]

Only have “Music for 18 Musicians” and “Octet”, both terrific.

[walt]

Saw him in 1977 at The Kitchen, NYC,and at Town Hall doing Music For 18 Musicians a couple of years later.Transcendent musical experiences, both of'em.Halcyon days.

Always dug this composition.Phase Patterns For Organ.

[Burley Wright]

I'm a fan, Music for 18 Musicians, Desert Music, and Different Trains are among my favorites.

[helicase]

Anyone a fan?

Yep. My favourite piece is Four Organs. A few years ago I saw a performance on four big pipe organs. Amazing.

[kenschwartz]

another big fan. I remember sitting like a row behind david bowie at the bottom line in nyc for reich doing 18 musicians. if memory serves, he was with adrian belew (or was it david byrne)...well, it was someone else, for sure.


interesting trivia: my dad owned a textile store at the address on the album cover. reich's loft was on the floor above. my dad used to come home now and then with comments like "that guy upstairs was driving us crazy today"
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[battema]

Kind of a recent-ish fan, but I do really like his stuff. 'Music for 18 Musicians' is phenomenal, and I'm rather fond of 'Electric Counterpoint' (first recorded by Metheny, but there's a great version with Jonny Greenwood from a few years ago). Best word I can use for this particular portion of the piece is "joyful."

[gpeccary]

Yeah, count me in as well. I think I started out with Different Trains. But 18 Musicians is my all time favorite, truly an amazing piece of music. I've ended up with a fair amount of his work, but ALWAYS go back to 18 musicians.

[Mister Triscuits]

I actually haven't given the early tape looping experiments enough of my time, but thanks for the kick up the arse to try again.

Because of that early exposure, that's the stuff I think of first when I hear his name. But I'm a big fan of the later stuff, too, especially Tehillim.

[interbellum]

A nice box for starters (which I was more or less when I bought this): https://www.discogs.com/Steve-Reich-...release/410452

[Steve F.]

Fan here.
From the mid 70s to the early 80s, he was a profound and a lasting influence on my musical thinking.

[Gizmotron]

Sure!
Reich and Riley were required listening in my classes and I always loved "18.."

There are so many lessons in minimalism.

[at least 100 dead]

Brief aside: Seems that SR has left a mark on popular music; at least Gabriel’s “San Jacinto” and Susanne Vega’s “Solitude Standing” sound like they were heavily influenced by his music. There must be other examples...

[loosefish]

^Aphex Twin? Godspeed You! Black Emperor?

I only have a couple of the more obvious works by Riley (Rainbow in curved air and In C).Glass i don't rate as much, but his stuff's fine (Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack esp). Anyone know a good place to start with Max Richter?

[NogbadTheBad]

Big fan though I've got relatively little, "Music for 18 Musicians" is probably my favorite, also got Six Marimbas, Octet, Music For Large Ensemble, Violin Phase, Four Organs, Phase Pattern.

[Mister Triscuits]

Brief aside: Seems that SR has left a mark on popular music; at least Gabriel’s “San Jacinto” and Susanne Vega’s “Solitude Standing” sound like they were heavily influenced by his music. There must be other examples...

I've always gotten a smile out of Captain Beefheart repeating "Come out to show dem" in "Moonlight on Vermont"; the phrase reappears in passing in his and Zappa's "Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead."

[walt]

My recollection is that on every Tortoise cd i own(3) there's a track that sounds very much indebted to the works of Steve Reich.

[mogrooves]

In a word, "yes."

Too many faves to list, the most recent being the Double Sextet/2x5, which is quite nice. I've seen him numerous times since the 70s, and met him briefly. My favorite quote by him--because it matches my own preferences--is, "I have no real interest in classical music from Haydn to Wagner." Indeed!

[Kavus Torabi]

ENORMOUS fan, perhaps the biggest influence on the way I arrange music.
My favourite piece is Octet which, for me, is one of the most psychedelic compositions ever by anyone but I love pretty much everything.
There was a time in my twenties where nothing else would do. I kind of burned out on him, through complete immersion, for a few years but have had a real rennaisance on him again.
Steve Davis and I often end our DJ sets with The Four Sections: Part Four (full orchestra)

[Gizmotron]

ENORMOUS fan, perhaps the biggest influence on the way I arrange music.
My favourite piece is Octet which, for me, is one of the most psychedelic compositions ever by anyone but I love pretty much everything.
There was a time in my twenties where nothing else would do. I kind of burned out on him, through complete immersion, for a few years but have had a real rennaisance on him again.
Steve Davis and I often end our DJ sets with The Four Sections: Part Four (full orchestra)

Very cool! Good on ya!

[Kavus Torabi]

As for his influence on other musicians. I think it's far more common now, but for stuff 'back in the day', I always detected a strong influence on Mike Oldfield's Incantations and perhaps on Gong's Love Is How You Make It, although the latter may have been coincidence.

[Baribrotzer]

Never a big influence on me - in a sense, even though I've heard his music off and on for decades, I didn't ever "discover" him. The first Minimalist I heard was Philip Glass (his Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack), but the one who really did it for me is Louis Andriessen. Him and, more recently, John Coolidge Adams. Very roughly speaking, Andriessen uses a Stravinskian neoclassical harmonic palette, while Adams has more a post-Mahler+jazz sound, rather than the fairly strict consonant diatonicism most of the Minimalists adhere to. They're both on and off (in my opinion, all the Minimalists are), but their best work holds my interest in a way Reich's and Glass's doesn't.

This piece of Andriessen's is about equally fascinating and irritating, Like other Minimalists, he explores one musical device exhaustively, but not quite the same device, and not in quite the same way. In fact, it sounds a little like Belew-era Crimson, on vinyl with a bad skip. And if you do listen, be sure to sit between the speakers, because, on a level to rival Esquivel, it's in

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