Steve Reich - Piano Phase, For 2 Pianos (Or 2 Marimbas)
No label
Early Minimalism / Phase Music
1 songs (19:20 (Averagely))
Release year: 1967
Reviewed by Misha
Archive review

The name of Steve Reich will forever be mentioned in relation to the early minimalists, although that label doesn’t apply in any way to his later works, arguably starting with Music For 18 Musicians. It is undeniable that he was influenced by the works of Terry Riley, who was in his turn influenced by the nowadays nearly invisible spider at the nexus of the minimal web: the Dream Syndicate collective (or works by La Monte Young performed by the group, depending on the version of history), later to be called the Theatre Of Eternal Music.

Reich had been experimenting with the phase shifting of tapes; looped sound fragments simultaneously played by two tape recorders, of which one was held back a little to secure the loops to slide past each other at a slow pace. As his early phase works, 1965’s It’s Gonna Rain and 1966’s Come Out and Melodica were all based on tape looping, Piano Phase can be considered a milestone in Reich’s phase music. For the first time, he had been able to capture the gradual process of phase shifting in classical music. Many years later, the IDM scene would again find use for the methods that are featured here, but its live performance remains a rarity.

It is a simple yet enthralling melody, played by the two pianists. Repeated for 20 minutes, that wouldn’t be extremely interesting (this reviewer thinks Eric Satie’s one minute composition, Vexations: to be repeated 840 times, was not a very good idea), but logically one pianist plays only slightly faster than the other. The melodies shift one note in quite a while, during which phase and anti-phase result in a temporary climax. It must be a pianist’s hell to play at such an accurate tempo while disregarding the person next to you.

While the method is a raw and simple idea, the result is magnificent. The melody is composed of a dreamy and trancelike foundation, with an accentuated and capturing top. It is never the same and shifting every second, but the composer only had defined the initiation of the process. This was at the time a rather radical method of composition as the composer no longer channelled his emotion through the entire piece. In that sense, this can be related to the eternal music that La Monte’s collective was occupied with a few years prior. It does have a beginning, but it can continue for undetermined time without having to start at the beginning again.

Later, Reich would further exploit this live performance phase music with Violin Phase and Drumming, but in spite of that, this remains a statue of minimalism, more hypnotic and trance inducing than what would follow.

Killing Songs :
The thingy itself.
Misha quoted no quote
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