Listening to this disc over and over, I’ve been trying to figure
out what I could say about it. I’ve also been trying to decide
if I like it. A previous recording by the composer, The Light
that Fills the World, left me cold. As for this one, I’m
still on the fence.
John Luther Adams - not to be confused with the minimalist composer
John Adams - is a “new music” composer who brings varied influences
to his works. Initially a drummer in a rock band, he expanded
his musical horizons, notably discovering the music of Morton
Feldman. While influences of Feldman’s music can be heard here,
I find that this disc - at least the work Four Thousand Holes
- reminds me more of ambient compositions by Brian Eno and
Harold Budd. While Adams’ work is a bit more aggressive - as
far as one can call this semi-ambient work aggressive - it nevertheless
maintains much of the spirit of long-form ambient compositions
of the 1970s and 1980s.
The piano takes centre-stage in Four Thousand Holes,
with a number of chords and simple melodies and progressions
playing throughout. There is little obvious structure, though
key changes are apparent. The “electronic aura” is “electronic
sounds created by processing the acoustic instruments’ sonorities”,
a sort of odd electronic sound that holds up the work, sounding
like chords played backwards, going from decay to attack.
Adams, writing about this work, says the following:
“Four Thousand Holes is my own effort to re-appropriate and
reclaim for myself something of my own musical past. For the
first time since my days as a rocker, I’ve chosen to restrict
myself to major and minor triads — those most basic elements
of Western music (both pop and classical). But I’ve tried to
assimilate them fully into my own musical world. Approaching
these simple chords as found objects, I’ve superimposed them
in multiple streams of tempo, to create darker harmonies and
lush fields of sound.”
I guess that is as good a description as any. The work is an
amalgam of chords, loosely organized, following a limited number
of progressions, remaining in one key, which gives an overall
coherence. Again, I’m not sure what to think of it; unlike some
ambient-influenced works, I’m not convinced that I either do
or don’t like this work, but for anyone interested in discovering
it, try and find some long sound samples on the Internet; 30-second
samples won’t be enough to appreciate it.
The second work on this disc is … And Bells Remembered …,
a work that Adams began composing in 1973. “The instrumentation
has changed. The notation has changed. The specific details
of texture, the sequence of events has changed. But the overall
sound, the harmonic colors, the feeling is the same.”
This is just over ten minutes of very slow melodies played on
bells. Not much happens. Bells are rung.
Kirk McElhearn
Kirk McElhearn writes about more than
just music on his blog Kirkville (http://www.mcelhearn.com).
Stephen Drury (piano) 
