While perhaps not at all related to the bass, or even the alternative music community, I still couldn’t talk about sounds that I’ve gladly let into my ears over the past year in any regard without mentioning the compositions of Steve Reich. I suppose that the discovery of Steve Reich is often a water-shed moment for many forward-thinking music fans when they find something that bridges the gap between the formal/orchestral and the experimental/progressive/rock sides of music, but it’s also much more than that.
While I’ve been intrigued with modern minimalist composers like John Cage and Philip Glass before I still haven’t been quite as moved or inspired by them as I was when hearing “Music for 18 Musicians” for the first time. Since then I’ve yet to find anything by Reich that doesn’t inspire me and further open the realization that what I know about music is truly only a drop in the bucket. With Reich, the musicians will always be able to nerd out on the rhythmic complexity of his pieces and the transcendental effect they can produce, but you can always be sure that the music will hold some universal substance as well, one that you don’t have to be a musician to appreciate. Whether it be his tape-looping spoken-word experiments or his recent re-imagining of Radiohead songs, I emplore you to listen to anything by him and start changing the way you look at music now.
The (slightly) Discerning Bassist 