Title: Three Aspects Of The Name
Format: 12" Single
Label: Table of the Elements
Catalogue Number: Tb65
Year of Release: 2003
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Tracklisting:
A1 Three Aspects of the Name (Version 1)
A2 Three Aspects of the Name (Version 2)
Some records you buy just on the strength of the packaging - this is one of those records.
Lovely red vinyl, lovely gold print on one side, limited edition of 2000, suitably obscure label full of experimental musicians - this ticked all the boxes for me!
I bought it at the lovely Aquarius Records in San Francisco as well, so as well as being a great looking record, it is also quite remarkable that it survived the journey back to Edinburgh via New York and Paris in my suitcase.
It's just a shame the music is awful.
From the blurb on the sleeve it sounds promising:
In "Three Aspects Of The Name" I return to my hard-core roots as a minimalist. The musical vocabulary is essentially the same as that of my earlier composition, "Guitar Trio" (1977), where most of the harmonic and melodic vocabulary occurs within the overtones generated by the fundamental pitches, which consist primarily of one chord of two pitches in a 9/3 ratio. The current piece marks my first use of this particular technique for voice. The three words of text come from a traditional Hebrew inspirational chant that I chose to work with, for, among other reasons, it is highly selective and potent use of the vowel sounds, which lend themselves to the unfolding creative story that the overtones tell over the course of the composition" - Rhys Chatham
When played, it just sounds like some blokes droning on and on. Twice.
It sounds like Rhys has done some interesting stuff, (there's a good archived site for more information here: http://www.rhyschatham.net/nintiesRCwebsite/index3.html) but I just haven't bothered seeking it out, in case it turns out to be like this one.
Other records in the Lanthanides series are better though, and will be reviewed in due course.
