William Basinski – A Red Score in Tile 4.9

                William Basinski can be thought of as a reverse Brian Eno: whereas Brian Eno created ambiance by building up, William does it by breaking things down. In his greatest work, Disintegration Loops, he even made the process romantic. You could hear and feel those loops breaking down into mere fragments. A Red Score in Tile explores slightly different territory.

                This piece, originally written in 1979, doesn’t break apart. Rather, it mediates on a single theme for 45 minutes. At moments you can detect a slight variation on the theme, a slight bending of pitch. Unfortunately, the amount of work and focus needed for this discovery is ultimately a let-down. Sure, the sound is great, William doesn’t exactly create tasteless recordings, but it feels unusually empty for a composer who deals with larger scale pieces in a more meaningful way.

                Basically a recording like this was inevitable. With so many releases, at some point he would eventually release a dullard. I’d strongly suggest his Disintegration Loops recordings for those with time and patience. That experience is rewarding. For those with less time, Melancholia offers a better presentation of his ideas in a short period of time. But sadly, this piece is not worth the effort the listener puts in. Fine wallpaper music but not something worth engaging on a deeper level.

The Penguin Café Orchestra – Music from the Penguin Café Orchestra 9.7

I’ve listened to this countless numbers of times, and each time I discover something a little better about the recording. Each piece on here has warmth that can’t be described, a pure joy to making music. Occasionally little images of childhood pop in here and there. This is probably one of the sweetest records I have had the pleasure of listening to, and it has this sweetest without being saccharine about it. 

Brian Eno saw this released on his “Obscure Records” label in 1976. That label name is aptly appropriate; these guys always sort of lurked in the back, never really getting the proper attention they deserved. A few radio programs use their music and a few indie films used the songs as soundtrack fodder, but there’s something more here.

“Penguin Café Single” sets the mood for you. It starts out triumphant. For whatever reason I’m reminded of early animated silent cartoons, before they got obsessed with extreme movement and wackiness. The middle part is great as well, this reflects sort of the reason that they never got so popular: they tend to repeat things and go into almost stream of conscious kind of material. 

Most of this stuff has the optimistic afterthoughts of the happiest parts of hippiedom. Interplay is constant, as are endless explorations on the same theme. Also, their balance between tension and release makes a lot of these songs work when they really shouldn’t. “Chartered flight” captures the sentiment nicely, starting out with a very tense approximation of a lonely time in the clouds. Then the warmth comes. 

There are even a few surprises on here. For example, Nico on “Coronation” gives a fairly beautiful and brief showing. She adds to the dreamlike quality of so much of this music. “Hugebaby” does this too; it gives me dreams of people and objects slowly floating away into the sky with a slight bit of wistfulness. And my favorite song on here is also the longest: “The Sound of Someone You Love Who’s Going Away and It Doesn’t Matter”. I don’t think there’s ever been a song title that so accurately described the music contained within. 

Shame they never got as popular as they deserved, but then again the music is a bit of an acquired taste.


The sound of someone you love who's going away and it doesn't matter