Disquiet

Another treat from the Other Minds archive at archive.org: a “text-sound composition” by Harold Budd, perhaps best known for his collaborations with Brian Eno and with Cocteau Twins. Reportedly dating from 1970, it begins with him saying, “I’m in the same room but with the addition of an echo signal.” The statement echoes the Alvin Lucier composition, “I Am Sitting in a Room,” of the same year, but whereas the Lucier slowly devolves over repeated re-recordings, the Budd almost evaporates into thin, singular strata of noise that play for almost 40 minutes. The recording was originally made available as part of Source magazine (not to be mistaken for the hip-hop publication). Judging by the archival material at deeplistening.org and ubu.com, the Budd piece appeared in volume 6 of Source, alongside work by Lucier, Fredric Rzewski, Daniel Lentz, Morton Feldman and others. Deep Listening has back issues, priced at well over $100 a piece, which makes the Internet Archive download a true bargain (MP3).

By Marc Weidenbaum