Michael Nyman: Decay Music

This is Michael Nyman from before he got his trademark style, when he was still mainly a music critic, teacher and documenter of experimental music. The two pieces on the record are themselves very experimental, and were released on Brian Eno's Obscure Label. If I'd had the budget in the mid-eighties, I'd have probably bought all ten releases on the label, but as it was I could only afford half that number, and this was one of them.

1-100 is a piano piece — composed, like the music that made his name, for a Peter Greenaway film — which I think of as sounding a bit like Morton Feldman in mood. But I'm no Feldman expert, so I could be wrong. Bell Set No 1 is for percussion. It reminds me a bit of Paul Schütze's Second Site, without the voice.