Steve Reich – Drumming / Music For Mallet Instruments, Voices And Organ / Six Pianos

Deutsche Grammophon have just re-released the vinyl boxset, pressed on 180g and with 28pg booklet and download card. Individually numbered, limited edition for those that like the incentive

This album is simply amazing. "Six Pianos" alone is worth the price of this album on whatever format you find it on. Don't let the length of the pieces scare you, you will want to listen to every minute. "Part I" of "Drumming" and "Six Pianos" are so hypnotic and so engaging and enthralling in their complexity and beauty that like I said, the quite drastic lengths of each (each around 25 mins) are no problem in enduring. Certainly an essential work for any fan of experimental/minimal/or early avant garde/electronic music.

This is certainly a very interesting yet monotone release. So how did I come to hear of Steve Reich? Actually a friend thought it good for me to have a listen to some real minimalistic arrangements instead of hammering 4x4 beats which I tend to listen to very much (psy/goa-trance), so he gave me a copy of this one. I never thought it would be this good, and the remarkable thing about this release is the fact that they've done everything manually which makes it all sound extremly unique (I'd better go check his other releases as well). From hand drums, marimbas, glockenspiel, and pianos, manipulating it in forever loops. And it all sounds so perfect, no mistakes whatsoever. Sometimes they make a section of a track go nonsynchronized on purpose, and that's for example 4 people on separate hand drums all of them not synchronized, totally brilliant. They always seem to have one pattern each, which is mixed together into different rhythmical sessions. With 4 (or more at times) artists and tracks with lengths of 20+ minutes the arrangements can take on a lot of different soundshapes, yet it always stays true to some sort of basic pattern be it a melody or rhythm or both which is repeated into infinity.