REWORK_ (Philip Glass Remixed) – Album Review
So we enter the modern world of 75 year old American composer Philip Glass as re-imagined through the lens of Beck and cohorts, half this man’s age. Like ECM’s recent reworks by Villalobos and Loderbauer, Maurizio and Carl Cox’s take on Ravel, and the Reich Remixed project back in 2006, this album takes source material, applies sympathetic changes and often accentuate with drums, not something you will hear in many Philip Glass originals.
Philip Glass, after graduating from Juilliard and winning classical composition awards in the late 1950’s, became an early exponent of extended repetition and sequencing, so that when a change in chords are introduced, the overall effect is pivotal, dramatic, oxygenating. One of his most focused works “Music In Twelve Parts”, an exercise in endurance, is quite far removed from music’s traditional storytelling function, concerned instead with the power of repetition and slowly wrought change. Part one of this work is reworked by My Great Ghost to open the album, as handclap drums are added with clouds of fast panned hi-hats. This and many of the remixes are actually feats of reduction from the original source, and very different, though the mood of a piece may be alluded to.
Thanks to Beck, it’s a consistent sounding album, at times with more beauty than the original insistent Glass pieces. If you are a long-time fan, you may be wishing for the purity of intent or force of the originals, I’m betting that “watered down” has been uttered by the faithful around Reworked_. This is, unlike the more grand Glass, a slower paced compilation suiting background and loud volumes alike.
My first exposure to Glass was his Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack which was dizzying, capable of slow, bass/baritone voice passages,also of acrobatic orchestration and musicianship. Instruments climb and ricochet past each other like hyperactive ants near a busy nest. It is one thing to have a musician playing blazing orchestral solos, another to ask them to maintain hypnotic arpeggios with precision for half an hour. Back in the 1970’s before samplers and sequencers could approximate or mimic the job, audiences must have been thrilled and confused. So what happens today when sequencers are now old too? There are no particular show-off pieces here, though Ty Braxton’s sequence and repetition does tie in with his usual energy and herk-jerk, and finds common ground in “Rubric”.
The answers to the problems of reduction and updating to be relevant to today in this album are respectful, bringing subtly sweeping electronic drones, clicks, bass, and manipulations. Beck, on his 20 minute piece also adds his own voice, documenting a golden period for Glass in “NYC: 73-78”. It provides a melancholic dream-like collage, beautiful choral work emerging a few minutes in. Surprisingly, a male chorus, reminiscent of Fleet Foxes in an echo chamber. Rhythms being brought in and out let this piece breathe and develop. The image I have of this piece is Glass seated in perhaps a subway car, travelling slowly past scenes and operas, orchestras and songs, with today’s technological hindsight, soaking up the moods of his works.
It has been an interesting couple of years for Beck, his music club collaborations have thrown open musical dialogue and cross fertilisation, he has led interpretations of records from INXS’ Kick to Yanni Live at the Acropolis. Check out St Vincent and Liars among others, on Never Tear Us Apart. Jazz has always enjoyed this openness and Beck’s wide tastes are . He also produced the latest Steven Malkmus and Thurston Moore albums, and has an album coming out in December, as sheet music only.
Reworked_ is partly a celebration of Glass’ 75th year – he too also always engaged with different artists – dance, three operas, theatre, painters. For this project Glass said was interested in providing source material for artists to rework and was not precious about handing it over. As a result, quite varied pieces, some pastiche, some more muscular, have been mixed. A rework of Koyaanisqatsi by Oneohtrix Point Never was rejected, a very hazy and gentle gauze-like piece which I would have liked to see on the compilation, with a little more fleshing out. Cornelius during his version of “Opening” from Glassworks sounds rather unlike his busier work but pays his gentle respects. Jóhann Jóhannsson should be noted, for his gorgeous handling of Protest, from Satyagraha. Glass himself spoke at Occupy in NYC outside a Satyagraha performance, reciting from his opera, still engaged at 75. Tai Chi clearly works.
This compilation in other hands could have been too simple, may have featured obvious back-beats to original source material. The artists who did pass Beck’s standards (also including Pantha du Prince, Dan Deacon, Ty Braxton from Battles, Nosaj Thing) are not particularly mainstream electronic artists. Though I would have expected Sufjan Stevens, Final Fantasy, and others clearly with Glass in their veins, this celebration works well with collaborators who are on the ascendant. There are no female artists represented unfortunately.
Glass originals may be busy music but all instrument parts are utilitarian, not often does one instrument raise its head above the mix to highlight itself (with notable exceptions such as Naqoyqatsi where cello featured heavily.) Philip Glass wanted to bring to his audience such repetition, such structure, as to put their minds into different states. If anything this collection gives one a craving for repetition, to revisit his earlier work for the austere thrills it has to offer. Rework_ succeeds where it illustrates the original ideas of Glass (which simplistically are repetition and also additive repetition such as in the Indian raga) with new voices or meshing electronics. Now, who shall offer Michael Nyman the same service?
- Mastered for vinyl by Bob Weston from Shellac who played Adelaide Oct 2012.
- As with Bjork’s Biophilia, a smart phone app will be available to tie in with the album.
- There was a mixtape project in 2005 called Glassbreaks by djBC which set Beastie Boys and Li’l Jon among others, to Glass pieces, now taken down from the web, but if you’re interested to find it, I may be able to help…
EminentlyListenable 