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Amazing work from Philip Glass – his second great opera, and a long-overdue follow-up to Einstein On The Beach – a set of music that's every bit as great as that groundbreaking work, but maybe even with stronger, fuller execution overall! The piece looks at the early political years of Gandhi – the title is a term coined by him, as a reference to his philosophy of truth and love – with words by Constance DeJohng, and these amazing minimalist orchestrations by Glass – filled with the kind of long-spun lines you'd find in his instrumental work, but somehow made even more amazing with the presence of lyrics! Douglas Perry handles the role of Gandhi – and the performance is by the New York City Opera Orchestra and Chorus, directed by Christopher Keene. CD

The final album in the "qatsi" trilogy, and one that's got the same sublime Philip Glass scoring as the others – but which also features some beautiful cello solos from Yo Yo Ma too! Given that there's a darker side to this film, the warmth of the cello balances things out nicely – and occasionally creates a nice juxtaposition with a few of the more urgent moments in the larger orchestrations – which are performed by the Philip Glass ensemble. Titles include "Media Weather", "Old World", "Intensive Time", "Primacy Of Number", "The Vivid Unknown", "Point Blank", and "Definition". LP, Vinyl record album

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An amazing record, and one that forever transformed the sound of opera in the US – the amazing summation of all the many musical ideas that Philip Glass had been cooking up since the 60s, done as a mindblowing stage presentation with Robert Wilson! Voices, organ, reeds, and piano come together in wonderful lines that go on and on, seemingly forever, in endless variations and rivulets of sound – as simple in structure as the leaner small combo minimalist work from Glass – but with a very different style in the fuller setting, with a sonic quality that still is as groundbreaking today as it was back in the 70s! This is a special promo package – featuring some of the best shorter spots in the larger work! LP, Vinyl record album

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A smaller-form piece by Philip Glass, but still an opera of sorts – billed as a "space fiction music drama" – with reeds from Jon Gibson and Jack Kripl, and some vocals from Linda Ronstadt! CD

An incredible project from composer Philip Glass – the third in his cycle of operas that helped transform the world of classical music – and maybe the most creative of the bunch! Glass based the text is taken from original sources, and sung in original languages – quite a feat for the singers involved, and a wonderful combination to the orchestrations – which are heavy in the kinds of rhythmic flows that we always love in the composer's music – using keyboards, woodwinds, and fantastic voices in long-flowing minimalist modes! Shalom Goldman worked with Glass on the vocals – and this performance features Dennis Russell Davies at the head of the Stuttgart State Opera orchestra and chorus. CD

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Seminal work from minimalist genius Philip Glass – a set that was issued during the same decade that saw his important opera box sets define his career – but one that also hearkens back to some of the leaner experimental modes of his early days! Part of the set was recorded in 1979, the rest closer to the mid 80s release of the record – and the music was originally conceived as a project with artist Sol LeWitt and choreographer Lucinda Childs – but stands very strongly on its own as a way of exploring the leaner modes of expression from Glass. At times, the approach is very similar to the Steve Reich sound of the early 70s – especially on "Dance No 2" and "Dance No 4" – both of which are solo organ pieces. The other three dance pieces have a fuller feel – still lots of organ (and we love Glass' preference for a Farfisa!) – mixed with sax and flute lines, and a bit of voice. Beautiful all the way through! CD

Don't let the 80s-styled cover, and the word "dance" put you off – as the set's filled with beautiful music from Philip Glass – two works done at a time when the composer was maybe at his greatest power, each for two difference dance-related projects! Side one features "In The Upper Room" – done for choreographer Twyla Tharp, and with full orchestrations that are wonderful – very much in the spirit of some of his soundtrack material for Koyaanisqatsi – but without some of the deeper tones and vocal chorus parts. At times, the piano is at the forefront – played by Michael Riesman – but strings and woodwinds are key, too, as the piece shifts through five different dances. "Glasspiece" was done for Jerome Robbins, and has a bit more keyboards at the start, like some of Glass' smaller group 70s work – but then brings in woodwinds and strings in a nice way, before moving back to more keyboards in the final third, which is a reworking of a passage from the opera Akhnaten. CD

A very cool concept – the minimalist orchestrations of Philip Glass, based around tracks from the Berlin years of David Bowie and Brian Eno! CD

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A sublime blend of voice, flute, keyboards, and saxes performed by John Gibson, Iris Hiskey, Jack Kripl, Richard Peck, and Michael Riesman. LP, Vinyl record album

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Sublime minimal sounds from Italian composer Robert Cacciapaglia – a record we'd rank right up there with the 70s best from Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass! Cacciapaglia follows in a tradition begun by other Italian modernists – like Giusto Pio and Franco Battiatto – but he also adds in phase-oriented playing that really opens things up – a beautifully lyrical vibe that's probably most close to Terry Riley in its hypnotic swell, but which is carried off here through complicated variations of strings, woodwinds, electronics, marimba, and some especially great vocal passages! The cover's as wonderful as the music – and the whole thing's a set we've treasured for years. LP, Vinyl record album

Right from the start of his career, poet Allen Ginsberg experimented with recording and music – maybe not a surprise, because as a young beat poet, he grew up in the era when long playing records were really taking off – yet still delivered in a way that was often very different than recorded projects by contemporaries like Lawrence Ferlinghetti or Jack Kerouac! For one thing, Ginsberg was never afraid to sing – which he definitely does here – and as a poet with an already-striking voice for reading, his vocals really follow suit – as does his collaborative spirit that ran through all generations of his creativity – leading him to work on some of these tracks with artists as diverse as Paul McCartney, Elvin Jones, Bob Dylan, Arthur Russell, and Philip Glass. The set was done in collaboration with Ginsberg's estate, and brings together both vocal and spoken selections, some never issued before – with selections that include "First Party At Ken Kesey's With Hell's Angels", "Raghupati Raghava", "Ballad Of The Skeletons", "Hum Bum", "Birdbrain", "Grey Monk", "Prayer For John Sinclair", "Put Down Yr Cigarette Rag", "Gospel Noble Truths", and "Ballad Of The Skeletons". CD

A really beautiful portrait of a really beautiful musician – the late great Arthur Russell, a New York talent whose groundbreaking work touched so many different scenes in the 80s, before he was taken away from our planet all too soon! Russell's music has lived on and flourished in recent decades, thanks to reissue and archive projects that have brought forth even more sounds than were issued during his life – and this book serves as a great complement to those releases, as it presents a portrait of Arthur in ways that are nicely different than a standard biography. Richard King fills the book with page after page of photos, music scores, documents, artwork, and other elements that provide very vivid examples of the way that Russell would not only create, but also interact with others – a quality that's echoed here in an array of voices that King allows to speak on the man himself – so that pages of images are juxtaposed with comments and reflections from friends and contemporaries like Peter Gordon, Philip Glass, Phill Niblock, and Lucy Sante. The hardcover edition is almost 300 pages in length, and is filled with images throughout! Book

Stunning work from Eighth Blackbird – easily one of the most important groups on the Chicago scene in recent years – and instrumental in bringing modern music out of the ivory tower, and back into a much more vibrant public presence! These guys are forging a legacy that rivals that of some of the early ensembles of Philip Glass or Steve Reich, or of Kronos Quartet in the 80s – and their lineup is very inventive – flutes, clarinets, violin, cello, piano, and percussion – used in ways that are tremendously varied, and with a power that moves far beyond some of the more obtuse modes of other modern groups. Eighth Blackbird never seem to forget a sense of melody, even when very experimental – and this album rings out with wonderful flourishes of light and tone, in ways that we haven't heard from a set of contemporary compositions in many years. The album features reworkings of pieces from the Maxine & Stuart Frankel Foundation – re-imagined by composers Timo Andres, Andrew Norman, Robert Honstein, Christopher Cerrone, Ted Herne, and Jacob Cooper – all with an ear towards the group's unique musical powers. CD

Features Bill Laswell, Philip Glass, Pharoah Sanders, Mandingo, and others. CD

Brilliant minimal work from Steve Reich – pre-fame performances that really get to the core of minimalist composition from the start of the movement – played by a hip small group of musicians that includes Reich, Steve Chambers, Art Murphy, and Philip Glass! "Four Organs" is a wonderful combination of the instruments mentioned in the title – coming together with a cool drone-building quality, and driven by some very slight, soft rhythms on maracas – very cool, and relatively spare – but with a compelling sound that definitely shows that Reich and his contemporaries were onto a whole new groove. "Phase Patterns" has organs again - and is a slow, subtle exploration of Reich's early ideas on patterns of phase shifting – delivered here in a spare, stark, simple way that really hooks you into his musical ideas, in ways that some of the larger concept records sometimes fail to do. CD

A modern minimalist watershed – and maybe one of the first indications that Brian Eno was moving onto higher ideas in his music! The album's an important release on the Obscure series from Island Records – a special imprint that was curated by Eno, as a way of giving showcase to new ideas in British music that were neither free jazz, punk, prog, or any of the styles that were getting more play on the bigger labels! Instead, Eno and Obscure was to the British avant composition world what Lovely or CRI were to the US – although maybe had the bigger role of some of the Columbia Records releases by Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley. The album features the beautiful title piece – "Discreet Music", a long work that relies on a simple system of delay and recall, with slight variations occurring over the space of time, due to slight occasional interference from the composer. Side two features "Three Variations On The Cannon In D Major By Johann Pachelbel" – a great reworking of the baroque music classic – which works along similar lines, taking this very familiar classical theme, and breaking it down into simple components, which are then interwoven and played in repetition, creating a strange little bit of romantic minimalism. That second piece is performed by the Cockpit Ensemble, conducted by Gavin Bryars – who also got some great early releases on the Obscure label too! CD

Brilliant minimal work from Steve Reich – pre-fame performances that really get to the core of minimalist composition from the start of the movement – played by a hip small group of musicians that includes Reich, Steve Chambers, Art Murphy, and Philip Glass! "Four Organs" is a wonderful combination of the instruments mentioned in the title – coming together with a cool drone-building quality, and driven by some very slight, soft rhythms on maracas – very cool, and relatively spare – but with a compelling sound that definitely shows that Reich and his contemporaries were onto a whole new groove. "Phase Patterns" has organs again - and is a slow, subtle exploration of Reich's early ideas on patterns of phase shifting – delivered here in a spare, stark, simple way that really hooks you into his musical ideas, in ways that some of the larger concept records sometimes fail to do. CD

Brilliant minimal work from Steve Reich – pre-fame performances that really get to the core of minimalist composition from the start of the movement – played by a hip small group of musicians that includes Reich, Steve Chambers, Art Murphy, and Philip Glass! "Four Organs" is a wonderful combination of the instruments mentioned in the title – coming together with a cool drone-building quality, and driven by some very slight, soft rhythms on maracas – very cool, and relatively spare – but with a compelling sound that definitely shows that Reich and his contemporaries were onto a whole new groove. "Phase Patterns" has organs again - and is a slow, subtle exploration of Reich's early ideas on patterns of phase shifting – delivered here in a spare, stark, simple way that really hooks you into his musical ideas, in ways that some of the larger concept records sometimes fail to do. LP, Vinyl record album

An incredible chapter in the Arthur Russell story – and one that's not nearly as well-known as his club singles and art rock work of the 80s! The 2CD package presents some long-lost longer form work by Russell – instrumental pieces composed and recorded in the 70s and early 80s, most of which have a decidedly minimalist feel! In addition to being a dancefloor artist in the post-disco years, Russell was also music director of The Kitchen, and had ties to the more experimental side of the New York scene – and worked in a world that included Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Rhys Chatham, and many others from time. There's echoes of all 3 on this collection, and a large number of tracks that recall the brighter, more optimistic years of modern music – the almost DIY style that hit composition and performance in the stretch after early minimalism, conveyed beautifully on these recordings done for smaller ensembles, often in a mix of electric and acoustic instrumentation. A number of the titles here have never been released at all, and even those that did see the light of day did so only briefly – and often not under optimal conditions. The 2CD package features full notes on the music, and titles that include "Instrumentals Vol 1", "Instrumentals Vol 2", "Reach One – With Two Fender Rhodes (1973)", "Tower Of Meaning", and "Sketch For The Face Of Helen". CD

The birth of a legend – a set that brings together all the important early recordings that made Ravi Shankar such a key ambassador for Indian music in the 60s – long tracks that mix his sitar with really incredible percussion, all spun out with pulsating modal energy that went on to have a huge impact on jazz, rock, and even more serious classical music too! Given that Shankar's cited as an influence by folks from Philip Glass to George Harrison to countless others, this package is really the place to start if you want to understand his music – and as with other titles from the Fremeaux label, the presentation is great, with lots of music in the set, and notes in French and English. Titles include "Raga Ramkali", "Raga Jog", "Raga Simhendra-Madhyamam", "Raga Ahir-Bhairav", "Dhun Kafi", "Raga Hamsadhwani", "Raga Rageshri", "Fire Night", and "Improvisation On The Theme Music From Panther Panchali". CD

Featuring compositions by Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman, and Terry Riley. CD

With compositions by John Adams, Milton Babbitt, Joan Tower, Philips Glass, Samuel Adler and Marilyn Shrude. CD

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