Minimalism: less is definitely more

Whip out those headphones.

A few days ago I wrote about Gustav Holst and briefly about classical music. I mentioned a man named Steve Reich. Reich is a pioneer of American composition, spearheading the transition from full orchestral arrangements to minimalism. Reich is one of the best at using loops to create the craziest of musical harmonies while maintaining a steady pulse. One of my favorite Reich tracks is Music for 18 Musicians. He begins the composition by playing two identical loop tracks of the same note on the same brand of player. He sets the players to the same loop rhythm. Such a weird way to begin any kind of song, right? How can the same notes played simultaneously provide any sort of basis for a song to emerge? Here is where Reich displays his ingenuity. Although the recorders are identical, no two are exactly the same. As a result, the loops split from each other and take on a life of their own. It's the coolest musical mind-f*ck I have ever heard. After the loops split, the rest of the orchestra come in. Each instrument plays in staccato and in perfect harmony with the underlying loops. You can check out movement one of this two movement piece here.

Keeping that in mind, I now turn to how this style has influenced modern artists. S. Carey is a musician caught between two distinct genres. He subscribes to the acoustic and soft styles that define folk, but also resembles minimalist composers like Reich. Many of you have already heard S. Carey's work without realizing it as he is the drummer for Bon Iver. But S. Carey's solo work takes on a unique character. His debut solo album, All We Grow, is in one word: beautiful. The pieces on this album are more experiments than they are formal songs; he plays with combinations of harmonies, layering and layering until he likes what he hears. They don't follow any sort of sequence or pattern; they just continue until a new pattern layer emerges which envelops the old. The result is a cacophonous series of increasingly beautiful harmonies that stuns the ears. Maybe a third of all the tracks combined resemble songs as one would notice in the contemporary sense of the word (I say combined because some tracks will begin experimentally and then evolve into a standard song). This dichotomy makes the album eclectic and diverse. Have a listen to this track off of All We Grow (by the way, this music video is gut-wrenchingly heartwarming). See how he uses the minimalist style coined by Reich and incorporates that into his folk influence. The piano part acts as the loop but also adds to Reich's established precedent by going slightly minor at times. It's really quite cool how the two styles come together. Verdict: 4.7/5. Favorite songs: Move, We Fell, In The Dirt, Mothers, and Broken.

Best, Jonathan