Friday, May 02, 2008
Low
Still obsessed by Low. I'm curious as to how so much can come out of so little. There are literally so few elements - 3-note bass lines, sparse 2-part harmony, barely-there guitar and druns - yet it's so haunting. When I try to write such sparse music it just sounds banal. There is something magical and alchemical that I must discover from them.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
i've been listening to a lot of feldman and sciarrino in the past few days, also very sparse music, but also very magical. with your dilemma in mind i then took a look at a feldman score i have sitting on my shelf, and on paper it looked utterly banal.
so, could it be that the magic arrives with the actual performance? the breath, the humanity of it?
is that too wishy-washy??
yeah, i'm always surprised when i see feldman's scores - there's nothing really there!
of course the score is just a set of instructions so yes the real sound is key. and low's sound world is pretty unique. what i'm impressed by is that they just use really simple chord progressions and stuff, that in other hands sound much more banal.
Post a Comment