The late-life creativity of Terry Riley has been something to behold, and he is still going strong in his ninth decade. This is not quite such a late work, but it has gone through several stages and is certainly one of the most unusual among the composer's output. It began with an actual dream diary on Riley's part in the 1980s; he remarks that once he began the diary, his dream life seemed to expand. In 1996, he set some of the texts in the diary with a mixture of electronics, found sounds, and melodies; he was the speaker ...
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The late-life creativity of Terry Riley has been something to behold, and he is still going strong in his ninth decade. This is not quite such a late work, but it has gone through several stages and is certainly one of the most unusual among the composer's output. It began with an actual dream diary on Riley's part in the 1980s; he remarks that once he began the diary, his dream life seemed to expand. In 1996, he set some of the texts in the diary with a mixture of electronics, found sounds, and melodies; he was the speaker and, in a few cases, even the singer. Later, the Bang on a Can All-Stars commissioned a version of the work for conventional instruments: cello, double bass, keyboards, percussion, guitar, and clarinets. It is this version that is heard here from the current Bang on a Can All-Stars. Of course, this depends on the listener's taste, but to these ears, the conventional instruments add something to the work, anchoring Riley's stream-of-consciousness dreams in the real world. The new settings, a few by Riley himself and mostly by his son Gyan Riley, also inflect the music in the direction of modern jazz and, in a few cases, jazz-rock fusion, adding a whole new layer of meaning. One attractive feature of Riley's music is its occasional undertone of humor, evident here in such works as "Zucchini" ("I attend an orchestral rehearsal where one orchestra is playing a piece of mine that I don't remember writing, although I find it quite attractive and agreeable. The conductor is a Maurice Chevalier 'look alike'"). In any case, even as this is not the usual Terry Riley at all, aficionados of the composer should greatly enjoy it. ~ James Manheim, Rovi
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