Terry Riley's "Dorian Reeds" (1964) was composed for solo performer and two tape recorders. Describing the process in his notes to this release, Starling describes a procedure that seems to be a direct antecedent to the Frippertronics system that Robert Fripp developed around 1972, wherein note phrases were recorded and, with several seconds delay, played back into the room while also gradually decaying. For those listeners, including this write, who find Riley's early work much more exciting and conceptually rigorous than his subsequent output (say, up to about 1975) any reinvestigation of those pieces is welcome. Starling's reimagining of "Dorian Reeds", for flugelhorn, will more than satisfy those fans.
All of the interpretations of this work I've otherwise come across have utilized reeds, often the soprano saxophone as was the case in Riley's original version. By using brass, particularly the mellifluous, relatively low tones of the flugelhorn, Starling opens up the work to a significantly different palette, one that is every bit as enjoyable — arguably more so — than that provided by reed instruments. As in much of early Riley (notably the just about contemporaneous "In C"), the music is both additive and shifting, using fairly simple phrases that repeat, are augmented and slowly fade away. It swiftly moves into dense but always transparent territory, a kind of hall of mirrors, the phrases fairly rapid and pulsating, blurring and softening, replaced by others. One has the sense of moving, maybe driving down a street, registering faces and places, passing them by as they become mere traces, encountering new ones. Along the way, the brassy timbre often all but disappears and you can just about convince yourself that you are, indeed, listening to massed reeds; intriguing.
The nature of the fabric as a whole shifts over the course of the work as well with sections featuring a higher percentage of long, held notes come to the fore (again, much like "In C"), though there's generally some degree of percolation in play at all times. And, again as in "In C", the result is endlessly fascinating, the patterns feeling always new, a dizzying descent (ascent?) into a fractal field. Starling does an exceptional job treading the path along the rigor→ecstasy axis so essential to keep certain minimalist approaches from turning to mush. Well worth anyone's time who has an interest in this area, excellent work.
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