"... to return to the place we began and know it for the first time …” (T. S. Eliot)
Mysteriously evocative electro-acoustic works that the composer built from short recorded moments—audio fragments—of his early music. This is not a trip down Memory Lane: In the place we began, Adams has reappropriated and transformed these sonic fragments into completely new works that speak to his current musical interests and directions, especially his recent installation pieces, and refer to his past in ways that are highly personal and conceptual.
Realized by the composer at his studio outside Fairbanks, Alaska.
The composer writes:
“Last summer in my studio I discovered several boxes of reel-to-reel tapes that I’d recorded in the early 1970s. Using those ‘found objects,’ I sculpted these new soundscapes from fragments of my past.
“The tape that got me started was labeled ‘Scrap. Unknown.’ When I listened to it, I could neither tell which direction was forward nor determine its proper playback speed. In both directions and at high and low speeds the sounds were intriguing. After trying it all four ways, I began to superimpose tracks. Then I began exploring the other found tapes.”
1. in a room
2. at the still point
3. in the rain
4. the place we began
REVIEWS:
“This is a recording one can easily get lost in. Indeed, it’s one of the most ravishing examples of electro-acoustic music I’ve heard in many years.” —Gramophone magazine
“The Place We Began…is surely among Adams’s most evocative and personal creations.… Recorded with the clarity and presence typical of Cold Blue Music.” —International Record Review
“In a Room begins almost imperceptibly, like the opening of a Bruckner symphony, as if trying to conjure up a personal past ex nihilo, gradually building in intensity. At a Still Point begins similarly but soon morphs into a trippy wash of sound rivaling anything that you might hear in a club where DJs spin ambient electronica; totally chill on so many levels. In the Rain sounds like what it says it is: an exploration of the sound of rain. It creates wonderful polyrhythms by falling on various things and it’s a joy to experience those sounds cognizantly as a musical phenomenon. But JLA soon overlays this with some electronically generated pitch-based material which gradually takes over. The electronic sounds drown out the rain at some point, which feels like suddenly walking inside a dry place still soaking wet. When the sound of the pouring rain returns about halfway in it creates a subtle otherworldly duet with these directionless electronic tones sounding like Morton Feldman without an umbrella. The concluding title track, The Place We Began, calls to mind some of the early tape pieces of Iannis Xenakis, such as Bohor and Orient-Occident, which also frequently achieve a remarkable arhythmic stasis with a harmonically unstable amalgamation of pitches and timbres that only changes very gradually. Of course electronic music denizens will be quick to point out that pitches, harmonies, and timbres are all pretty much the same thing. But rarely has the message been driven home so effectively.” —Frank J. Oteri, NewMusicBox (American Music Center)
“Between these works, at the heart of the CD, are two pieces that make use of traditional instruments, albeit in imaginative ways. at the still point is mysteriously beautiful, with what seem to be pitch, speed and envelope manipulations applied to the hushed, bell-like tones of Fender Rhodes electric piano. Beyond its textural allure, the piece also creates interest via subtle gamelan-like structures and staggered relationships between its layers: bell-like mensurations eventually standing out against the low- and mid-frequency tonal washes; fragmented clusters of electric piano arriving to form vaguely impressionistic harmonic events that hint, perhaps, in a dreamlike way, at 1970s Joe Zawinul.
“in the rain is even more distinctly layered, its strata including field-recorded nature sounds, an organic gamelan (this time created by the sound of rain falling into metal pots), and further spectral manipulations applied to clusters of acoustic piano. Resonant and evocative, this work goes deep, seeming to touch upon personal memory and the eternal shapes and patterns of nature.
“Depth of field and resonant, sensory evocation have not been unusual in Adams’ body of work. The Place We Began offers further evidence of the composer’s command and confidence, his fertile imagination and assured technique. And while Adams doesn’t necessarily sound like precursors Cage, Feldman and Oliveros, he does share with those American masters a definite commitment to the creation of unique and engaging music that springs from an experienced intensity of absolute listening.” —Kevin Macneil Brown, Dusted magazine
“‘To return to the place we began and know it for the first time…,’ a quote from T.S. Eliot, is the root of this enthralling offering by John Luther Adams.… A wonderfully understated album by an equally elusive artist, who lets the essence of sound do all the speaking. Like in the best dreams, which inevitably fail to materialize.” —Massimo Ricci, Brain Dead Eternity (Italy)
John Luther Adams’ music has won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award and has been performed by such ensembles as the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, and Int'l Contemporary Ensemble. Cold Blue Music has released seven albums of his work, including Lines Made by Walking, The Wind in High Places, The Light That Fills the World, and Red Arc/Blue Veil....more
These almost heartbreakingly gentle felted piano compositions have the delicacy and loveliness of slow-falling snow. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 30, 2023
