Steve Reich: You Are (Variations) [Discuss tepidly]

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I bought his new CD You Are (Variations), which everybody seems to not be talking about. I like it, it harks back to his Tehillim sound. For those of you who haven't liked anything you've heard by him since then, this might be something you'd enjoy. Given Reich's emphasis on the music somehow growing out of the text organically (I hope that's an adequate paraphrase of what I've seen him say in various places), I do find it a little ironic that I can hardly make out what is being sung. (But I guess it doesn't necessarily follow from the music following the lead of the text that the text is somehow very important and foregrounded.)

"Cello Counterpoint" is also good, kind of dense. I'm not a cello lover, but I find this piece likeable.

There's an interview with Reich in the liner notes in which he discusses how both pieces moved him into what were, for him, new harmonic areas. I wouldn't know how to begin to discuss that, but I do hear something a bit different in these pieces, so while to a large extent they return to an earlier sound of his, they aren't mere repetitions of it.

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 01:20 (twenty years ago)

Actually, I'm kind of hoping someone like Sundar will hear this and come along and say something interesting.

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 01:44 (twenty years ago)

how new is this? i swear i heard the name about when i bought the reich box, which was a couple years ago

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 02:48 (twenty years ago)

http://www.lamc.org/concerts/0405/041024_reichnotes.html

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 02:52 (twenty years ago)

It was just released on CD, September 2005: http://www.nonesuch.com/Hi_Band/index_frameset2.cfm?pointer=reich.gif

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 03:12 (twenty years ago)

I like it a great deal, I'm a big fan of Reich in general & I agree that it recalls Tehillim, which I still prefer: it had an intensity the new one doesn't quite have. To me this one is kinda like Tehillim divided by Desert Music, which is cool with me because I also dig Desert Music - it's just that he used to seem more intent on straight-out causing a trance rather than just making space for one.

― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 04:20 (twenty years ago)

i have had this on my desk for a month and have yet to break the shrinkwrap. i just can't get into the idea of another reich disc.

― dabnis coleman's ghost (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 04:22 (twenty years ago)

x-post

I was thinking earlier that there is a joyous quality in what I would think of as mid-period Steve Reich (though I might be dividing things in a lopsided way) that I don't think is ever going to quite be recaptured in his work. I'm not thinking of Tehillim, which I like but not quite as much as I used to, but "Drumming", "Octet" and "Music for 18 Musicians" (which I need to buy!).

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 04:28 (twenty years ago)

the last two I really loved were The Desert Music & the first part of The Four Sections.

The Cave, City Life, Triple Quartet, Three Tales, all sold back, not sure what it'd take to get me to check out another new piece at this point. The DVD of Korot's video for Three Tales, however, is one of the most unintentionally funny things I've seen in the last year and I kind of wish I'd hung onto it just to be able to occasionally inflict it on people, it's really special

― milton parker (Jon L), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 04:48 (twenty years ago)

if you're pressed for time, just skip to the final scene 'dolly', take a handful of thorazine with a room of good friends and open yourself to Korot's message

― milton parker (Jon L), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 04:51 (twenty years ago)

I don't think I've bought anything by him since Different Trains (which I liked, but gradually listened to less and less, and don't have much interest in listening to any more).

This is good, not so earthshakingly good that I think it's a must hear type of thing. I do need to make myself sit down and pay full attention to "Cello Counterpoint" since I think there's some interesting stuff going on there that I'm missing (but could partially grasped if I listened more carefully).

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 04:53 (twenty years ago)

I saw a live performance of this a few weeks ago. I really liked the Spectorian aspect of it, with the four pianos pounding out hypnotizing rhythms. "Good, but not so earthshakingly good that I think it's a must hear" seems accurate to me (note: I haven't heard the CD).

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 05:03 (twenty years ago)

if you're pressed for time, just skip to the final scene 'dolly', take a handful of thorazine with a room of good friends and open yourself to Korot's message

Heh, I thought Three Tales was brilliant (regardless of how I felt about its message) when I first got it but have barely played it since. I just put on the start of "Dolly" and can see where you're coming from. Maybe it's partly just that I find this kind of political propaganda-more-or-less kind of manipulative and wearying. Same feeling that turned me off Koyaanisqatsi when I saw it. (Do still like the soundtrack to that though.)

― Sundar (sundar), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 07:54 (twenty years ago)

"Dolly" is great as just music. I had the CD+DVD for months before I finally acquired a DVD player, so had to content myself with just the music for a long while. I think it works better actually if you imagine your own images to accompany it.

The Cave does have interesting imagery by Korot from what I remember of a live concert performance of it. That one does need the DVD treatment. (Or does one exist now?)

Not heard the new CD that RS mentions yet.

― Jeff W (zebedee), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 11:35 (twenty years ago)

Different Trains would be one of my desert island discs - I find it incredibly moving. However, I've found myself rather disappointed by the music he's released since then, was particularly underwhelmed by The Cave and City Life didn't do a lot for me either. I still clasp the Works 65-95 box to my chest though. Damn I'd forgotten about Three Tales - I don't think I even played it all through, must give that one a chance.

― 11V (11V), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 11:44 (twenty years ago)

agree w/the Desert Music and Tehillim claims. I like this (really, if you like Reich, what's not to like?), but I guess I would probably listent to Desert Music first

― Dominique (dleone), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 13:08 (twenty years ago)

eight years pass...

new harmonic areas, like, why so quick to leave the old PERFECT area

when i listen to '18' i feel like the world is different, life is different

when i listen to 'you are' it's like, hm, music

― j., Sunday, 17 August 2014 21:52 (eleven years ago)

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