Comments on: Loop Phasing: Steve Reich vs. Star Trek’s Worf vs. Orbital

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:30:54 +0000

Yeah, not to mention inviting discussion about the nature of time. (I saw that episode of Star Trek. You do NOT want to get caught in one of those loops.)

EBN / Brian Kane is **everywhere**.

Now, can anyone explain why the Eyebeam people had to go and creator a YouTube *tripler*? (Speaking of, ahem, actual rip-offs.)

By: Niall

Niall — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:27:06 +0000

YouTube Doubler is Brian Kane {Emergency Broadcast Network}’s site. The clip in question is a little more interesting, and invites more discussion about ownership, sampling and intertextuality, than a mere “rip-off” {sorry if that’s a bit Pierre Menard}.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Broadcast_Network

By: MDCM2003 Interactive Courseware

MDCM2003 Interactive Courseware — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 00:54:41 +0000

[...] Create Digital Music : This is a great blog that moves between reviews of audio technology and creative practice. There is a of documented works here as well as great gear. Look at this post for a playful use of loops in quicktime: sound experimentation need not be complicated or highly technical. Who the hell is Steve Reich? Can you find his work on Last.fm? On Wikipedia What did he do? [...]

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:22:30 +0000

Steve Reich didn’t invent phasing. But there are various artists who have specifically cited his influence. (See Reich Remixed, for just one example.) And I think that’s productive, honestly, to be inspired by other artists and to talk about it. I have nothing against those who don’t talk about their influences, but most musicians are more than happy to talk about the music they love and why it’s important to them.

In fact, the implicit assumption is that there’s more to say musically than Reich himself did, that part of the inspiration is the feeling you can take it further. And to me, the connections to other music are just as important as my own work.

By: J

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:13:41 +0000

hmmm…interesting thread, in terms of “were they influenced/should they explicitly recognize it?”

for one, modern music is largely about recycling things from the past into new contexts, and personally I think it’s counter-intuitive to spend all your time telling people which musicians you admire - I would think it’s more important to promote your own music…

that said, anik mentions his friend using his Emax for phasing - it made me realize that I’ve used that trick many, many times with my SK-1, and while Reich is hugely influential on me, I don’t think I’ve ever thought of him when using the phasing ‘trick’…

By: anik

anik — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:04:27 +0000

Very cool! And funny to suggest that it’s ‘ripping off’ the Orbital track that sampled it in the first place! The comments here got me thinking - music critics (especially the non-musicians among them) tend to over-simplify, make false assumptions, and then go on to pronounce them as fact. Any musician with an adventurous mind who’s ever played with a sampler discovers this phasing phenomenon. I think the reviewers who heard Orbital and assumed it was a Steve Reich influence simply didn’t understand the equipment or the likelihood of musicians in disparate times and places coming up with the same effect when playing with the same toys, but really, it ain’t rocket science. I don’t know if Orbital was influenced by Steve Reich, but there were a lot of other composers who were playing with the same effect. I heard Neil Rolnick perform his piece ‘A Robert Johnson Sampler’ sometime in the early 90s at the Music Gallery in Toronto (I think!) and that piece, written in 1990, plays with fragments of audio and phasing in a similar way. At that time, it seemed an old trick to me - my friend and I were doing the same thing with his Emax in 1988. Had I been influenced by Steve Reich? Well, not consciously, and no more so than by John Adams’ Shaker Loops’ (a brilliant piece of phase music composed in 1978) or by R. Murray Schafer’s String Quartet #, composed in 1970…… anik.

By: Iuri

Iuri — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:09:06 +0000

I highly recommend this Piano/Video Phase (excerpt) youtube video.

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 23:25:54 +0000

There was also Reich Remixed, in case we need more citations of the Reich influence. There’s even a stereo delay preset called “Reichy Rhythmic” in Logic.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 14:26:07 +0000

Quite a lot of dance music artists DO talk very explicitly about being inspired by Steve Reich. And I think there’s some value to finding a way to make it danceable, whether it’s on the same compositional level or not, inventing what amounts to a folk form in that way.

I agree with Tim on wanting some new innovation, though. For some reason, the first thought that occurs is a bunch of laptops with phasing amounts of latency. ;)

By: Tim Thompson

Tim Thompson — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:46:44 +0000

Chris, you are correct in saying that what Orbital does doesn’t approach the richness and complexity of what Reich did (not to mention with TAPE!), but I don’t think that it should exclude them from doing it! I find it fascinating that things that had “been done” and so were basically out-of-bounds eventually come back around.

But what I really hope to see is someone who puts the effort and care into that Reich did with “Come Out” or “It’s Gonna Rain” into a piece that takes advantage of the possibilities of the digital medium.