Harold Budd: Abandoned Cities

I can't be sure when or how I came to buy this record. It must have been the mid '80s and I would guess it might have been in the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street (one of few places likely to stock such an obscurity).

It's just two long ambient pieces. Compositionally they sound similar to Budd's Lovely Thunder, which he did a few years later. In fact, Side 1, Dark Star, sounds in places like Lovely Thunder could be a 'remake' of it, with more advanced synthesisers. But the less sophisticated instrumentation here somehow has a richer grain to it. For reasons I can't confidently put my finger on, this record hits the spot in a way that Lovely Thunder does not.

If you don't know what this kind of music sounds like, imagine the music to Twin Peaks slowed down and stretched out.

It also has a clear family resemblance to fellow Eno-collaborators like Moebius and Roedelius in its not-going-anywhere feel (though Budd's music always broods in a way that seems much more Germanic, for a Californian, than anything those particular Germans do). Robert Fripp had some interesting reflections a few days ago about music that 'goes somewhere' and that which 'goes nowhere'.

MusicBrainz entry for this album