Here's 35 minutes of analogue minimalism, on an old 1980s LP, which still sounds great. You couldn't quite call it ambient. But it shows how even the narrow palette of minimalism is still capable of conveying cultural baggage. There's a lingering element of 'high-concept' thinking in Reich's and Glass's defining pieces, just as Warhol managed to make Campbell's soup cans profound. But the continental European minimalism of Moebius and Roedelius seems to have a total lack of ambition, utterly self-effacing. It doesn't start anywhere or go anywhere — which is not a criticism at all.
The four people to whom this album is credited don't actually all collaborate on a single track. The album is a collection of solo, duet and trio pieces, with Eno featuring on just two of them (both with Moebius and Roedelius). By treating each collaboration as a kind of additive synthesis of its creators' personalities you can almost abstract their individual essences through a series of algebraic equations. But to attempt this would presumably be to fly in the face of their collective intent in making this record.
I've got a vague recollection that I bought this in a record shop on Mill Road, probably in 1985 when we were living in Cosin Court (which now seems to have been taken over by Peterhouse College). £5.15 it was.
| MusicBrainz entry for this album |
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