Reich Remixed: Steve Reich: Amazon.ca: Music

1. Music For 18 Musicians (Coldcut Remix) - Steve Reich

2. Eight Lines (Howie B Remix) - Bang On A Can/Bradley Lubman

3. The Four Sections (Andrea Parker Remix) - London Symphony Orchestra/Michael Tilson Thomas

4. Megamix (Tranquility Bass Remix) - Steve Reich/London Symphony Orchestra/Michael Tilson Thomas/Theatre Of Voices...

5. Drumming (Mantronik Maximum Drum Formula) - Steve Reich

6. Proverb (Nobukazu Takemura Remix) - Theatre Of Voices

7. Piano Phase (D*Note's Phased & Konfused Mix) - Double Edge

8. City Life (DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid Open Circuit) - The Steve Reich Ensemble/Bradley Lubman

9. Come Out (Ken Ishii Remix) - Steve Reich

10. Bonus Track 1 - Various Artists

Product Description

From Amazon.com

The beauty of Steve Reich's minimalist compositions can be found not in their repetition but in their evolution. Listening to the Kronos Quartet perform Different Trains, the listener quickly gets over the camp value of the conductor samples to discover an unfolding theme that harks back not only to bustling industrialism but also to the horror of the Nazi concentration-camp trains. Reich is a master of such subtle changes in sonics, and his impeccable timing turns simple phrases into musical tapestries. On Reich Remixed, some of dance music's more innovative artists pay homage to the composer in the way they know best: by sampling his works and remixing them into their own. Coldcut's take on Music for 18 Musicians adds a fast-paced techno flair to the classic composition, Howie B's Eight Lines respectfully keeps the integrity of the original piece, and Tranquility Bass peppers "Megamix" with voices and (eventually) beats. There are some misses here, and, most unfortunate, DJ Spooky's schizophrenic treatment of City Life lobotomizes a previously fine composition. No, you still can't dance to Reich, but you can see how others use him for source material. But after hearing these condensed and diced versions, you might find it's worth delving back into Reich's originals to hear what the fuss is all about. --Jason Verlinde

Entertainment Weekly

This anthology, on which techno DJs overhaul Reich's recordings, makes clear their debt yet is a remixed blessing.

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Customer Reviews

14 Reviews

5 star:		(4)
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3 star:		(3)
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Average Customer Review

3.6 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)

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2.0 out of 5 stars Decent, but disappointing overall., Jan 4 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Reich Remixed (Audio CD)

There are a few really good tracks on this CD. My personal favorites are Music for 18 Musicians, Four Sections, the Megamix, and Piano Phase. The Desert Music remix (the bonus track) is okay, not great, but okay. And then there's the bottom end of the spectrum, which is everything else. Unfortunately, what I like is overpowered by what I dislike.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Great music for an electronic fan, Oct 3 2001

By

cassdog "cassdog" (Gainesville, Fl USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reich Remixed (Audio CD)

I enjoyed every one of these pieces on their own. I am familiar with most of the electronic artists and each one of these songs is beautiful. I had never heard Steve Reich's music before this. I enjoyed his music but, I didn't think that the remixes were completely true to his form. Reich's music has some good ideas that the remixer's somewhat expanded upon. I think the idea was to take some of Reich's ideas and put it in to a more modern style. If they wanted someone to rehash his ideas, then it would have been boring. I enjoy these artists, but there are artists out there that are using some of his ideas already, namely Plastikman and Tortoise. Overall the songs are great in any sense.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Proxy for a Reich's Greatest Hits CD?, Jun 15 2001

By

Gavin Wilson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Reich Remixed (Audio CD)

Of all modern classical composers, Steve Reich is the one whose music is most likely to attract the rock-oriented ear. 'Music for 18 Musicians' was a ground-breaking album which closed out the 1970s, and it took much of the audience that had been nurtured on Tangerine Dream's 'Ricochet' and, before that, Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells'. It was only to be expected that other artists would start sampling Reich's works.

I can't get enough of 'Music for 18 Musicians' -- I bought it on LP in 1979, and two versions on CD. It is my No. 1 self-hypnosis album. So I was intrigued to discover how it would be re-worked for this album. I was disappointed, frankly. The Coldcut Remix provides no evidence that the DJ has listened beyond the first five minutes of the original.

But there's no heresy in modifying Reich's music. I welcome every effort to do so. I knew about half of the pieces selected here, so, for me, it's partly a Reich sampler. The great thing about the album is that not only did it get me buying more of Reich's output, but it also got me listening more to the originals.

For me, the stand-out track here is 'Piano Phase', which applies prog-rock values to a piece I didn't know at all well. It could so easily be Rick Wakeman or Keith Emerson playing the synth lines over the piano loop!

The opening track has grown on me over the years. At first listen, the Megamix seemed to have too many different samples crowded in; it seemed too ambitious in searching for common musical themes between no fewer than nine of Reich's albums. But now it flows nicely.

The closing track, supposedly based on the Desert Music, is a straightforward techno track, almost Prodigy-like, whose relationship to Reich's music seems entirely tangential.

I believe every Reich fan should hear this album, even though a few will find perhaps nothing to like. And I'd recommend anyone who buys this album without knowing Reich to listen also to 'Different Trains', 'Electric Counterpoint', and of course, 'Music for 18 Musicians'.

Until Nonesuch releases in the US the greatest hits CD compiled in Japan, we will have to rely on this as the only single-CD tour through Reich's works, however oblique and re-shaped these may be.

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Most recent customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars boring,as expected
Choosing electronic/(post-)techno artists less dancefloor-oriented but more original(e.g Monolake,Ryoji Ikeda,Oval....)would surely have given better results. Read more

Published on Jan 11 2000 by Gabriel Lobos

4.0 out of 5 stars Good techno, a few bad tracks
I never listen to the "Drumming" one, but overall, this CD is incredible. It was one of the only impulse buys in my life that I have ever been proud of. Read more

Published on Dec 7 1999 by samorama