I knew Steve Reich is a genius but...

I had no idea he had thought of something as cool as this.

For some reason or other I've been doing a bit of reading/book purchasing on experimental music of the 1950s-1980s.

After seeing Steve Reich perform Music for 18 Musicians at the Barbican Centre and picking up the absolutely essential Phases box set I was hooked on his music for quite some time. This quietened down, however, until today when I discovered his 1968 composition Pendulum Music. As stated on Wikipedia:

Pendulum Music (For Microphones, Amplifiers Speakers and Performers) is the name of a work by Steve Reich, involving suspended microphones and speakers, creating phasing feedback tones. The piece was composed in August 1968 and revised in May 1973.

Reich came up with the concept while working at the University of Colorado. He was swinging a microphone in the style of the cowboy's lasso, and noting the produced feedback, he composed for an "orchestra" of microphones.

Three or more microphones are suspended above the speakers by means of a cable and stand. The microphones are pulled back, switched on, and released over the speaker, and gravity causes them to swing back and forth like pendulums. As the microphone nears the speaker, a feedback tone is created. The music created is then the result of the process of the swinging microphones.

The concept sounds brilliant, but what's even better is that it sounds (and looks) brilliant being performed as well.

Two YouTube videos




Steve Reich, talking about the piece to Perfect Sound Forever in April 2000:

I was spending the summer in New Mexico, living and working out there in '68. I went up to Boulder to collaborate with a friend of mine, William Wylie, who's a painter. We were trying to put together a 'happening' with sculpture, black light. While we were working on that, Bruce Nauman, who was a student of Wylie, stopped by. The three of us were in this room and I had one of these Wollensack tape recorders- they're these funky 1950's models with a cheap electric microphone. It was an old machine by then. I had holding the microphone, which was plugged into the back of the machine so it could record. The speaker was turned up. Being out West, I let it swing back and forth like a lasso. As it passed by the speaker of the machine, it went 'whoop!' and then it went away.

We were all laughing at this and the idea popped into my mind that if you had two or three of these machines, you would have this audible sculpture phase piece.

The event that Wylie and I did was the first use of this piece, done with two machines. When it was done as a concert piece at the Whitney Museum in 1969, during an event of my music, it was 'performed' by Bruce Neuman, Michael Snow, Richard Sierra, James Tenney and myself. They pulled back their measured microphones and I counted off 4-4 and on the downbeat, they all let it go and sat down, including me. Then the microphones begin to 'whoop!' as they pass in front of the speaker because the microphones had been preset to be loud enough to give feedback when it's in front of the speaker but not when it swings to the left and the right. Over a period of ten minutes, which was a little too long for my taste, and as the pendulums come to rest, you entered a pulsing drone. Once it hit the drone, I would pull the plug on the machine and the whole thing ended.

It's the ultimate process piece. It's me making my peace with Cage. It's audible sculpture. If it's done right, it's kind of funny.

In my earlier days, I was involved with a lot of visual artists and the context for my work was art galleries and museums. This was definitely such a piece. The work of Richard Sierra was like that where he would have sheets of lead propped up against the wall by other sheets of lead. What you see is what you get. This piece does that and hopefully, it's effect is kind of funny at the same time.

Conceptually, it fits hand-in-glove with my other work. It's a phase piece, a process piece. It's the idea of a piece that runs on its own once you set it up and load it and you can walk away. In terms of what I've done from '65 to the present, it's a totally oddball piece. Bang On A Can did a 60th birthday for me at Lincoln Center (1996) where they performed "Pendulum Music." It's a very provacative piece because it's not something you usually hear at concerts. So, it sits there as kind of a loner.

It's not a piece that needs to be done very often. I was not interested in recording (it). The Avant Garde Ensemble recording is very good- the pitch content becomes kind of a phase piece. They wisely did several versions and presented them all- it's the only piece of mine that doesn't have a sonic outcome. I never have been close to John Cage but this piece was a way of saying "OK, here it is but it isn't!"

I just heard about the Sonic Youth version and now I have to hear it! Here's a piece that's been unrecorded for 30 years and now I've got two recordings of it!

Time to ask a certain friend to borrow that Sonic Youth Album.

I'm in love, and will certainly be trying this soon. Anyone who wants to help, please let me know so we can get some amps and microphones together. Think of the potential uses, pendulum percussion at a live show to name just one.

Filip at the 3Bs, Reading, England, May 14, 2008

I played a gig last Wednesday. I supported Boredoms in the Bathroom and Skyline Dossier. I played three songs. Two of them old, one new. The gig was recorded.

Filip's second gig

The main song, for which you can find the lyrics below (including a few unused verses I have placed underneath), is pure fiction. People have asked.

Although the gig's not as snappy or fun as my first gig I managed to remember all the words without reading off a sheet or such and I think the lyrics may be better. Even if they're not, the recording (by Martin) is clearer than the last one. I've learnt a lot and will hopefully play again soon. With more instruments perhaps. And melodies.

Allegedly I sound "like a female Lily Allen". Or so Daniel Cooper tells me someone put it. I'm not sure what to make of that. Or what Lily should make of that.

Enjoy the song. I'm not 100% pleased with what I played and sang or how I played and sang it but it's all I've got and it wasn't disastrous.

I haven't posted the lyrics of the other two songs as I did them last time.

Please use the comment/comments button to tell me what you think I should do differently next time.

Roses Envelop Reading (performed version)

You're a fragment of the girl
You used to be
Your parents named you Emily
But everybody else knew you as trouble

Standing out on Broad Street
With a new song in your headphones
The world was gently peeling your skin and your bones away

And it's bring your kid to work day (x3)
And you work in a brothel.
The lights that covered lies
Were no match for her tiny eyes'
Surprise

And the smoke alarm was beeping
Took out the battery while you were sleeping
And as the flames burnt red and high
You stood and watched your daughter die
And you felt
Lonely
And tired
And proud
And the song in your headphones
Was relevant and loud

Oh Emily
Your face is burning
They're calling all the engines in
To Russell Street
Your home tonight
Your hands are charred and your face is thin
Uh oh.

There's a strange smell in the town tonight
And you're its saviour.
You were born in Slough
But you were let out for good behaviour
And...

And Queen Victoria's looking down
At a Swedish girl that's throwing up in the centre of the town
And in the 3Bs bar and in the 3Bs bar
There are three young women cheating on their boyfriends

She knows who they are
She knows who they are
She knows that they'll pay in time.
Ungrateful swine.

And a 1,3,5 is all he played.
He was terrified
But he was on a stage

And he's a singer songwriter
But no one knows his name
All his songs are about death and girls
What's worse they sound the same

He came late to his first show
Everyone was standing still
Having fun

You're a romantic in sheep's clothes
Your husband's knife it glistens in the winter sun

Bloodied notation
Songs without effort
And your lips are numb.

You were young and afraid
You were drunk on lemonade
When the council came to get your mum.

Choking on Wotsits
A cheesy death
You're blameless in the eyes of the police
But look at what you've done to your family

Throwing rocks at the soldiers
In their tanks as they're passing by
You thought his love would make you happier
His kisses made you want to die

He said he wanted to sleep with you
So you took three packs of sleeping pills
And he wondered in his head
Why all the girls he took to bed
Ended up dead

And you rose from the grave and said...
"I want roses
To come up from the ground like hands.
And torture everybody
Who doesn't meet with my demands."

And as the roses overgrew
The only one not scared was you
And as their skin began to harden
Took yourself down to Forbury Gardens

Where a brass band played
And the players lay in the grass
Impaled by thorns
No one could hear a word you're saying
Underneath the Thames they're laying girl

You bought a time machine
To rip off The Beatles
I thought you were bolder
Got a bullet in your shoulder

Oh Emily
You're dumb but learning
The sirens call you cannot win
A Careful C
Around your arm
A severed head in your recycling bin

Oh oh.

I knew we'd had a falling out
You were throwing utensils all about the town.
Don't worry about your address love.
I've got it written down.

22 Donnington Gardens

I had a dream
We were in the Natural History Museum
And there was a giant squid in the main hall
And turtles around the sides
We had nothing to hide
We knew this was the future

Where dinosaurs aren't cool
Since they tore apart your school
Oh Emily you recognised their faces
To them you're just a low cut top and braces.

I Woke Up Next to You + Hot Dog Love (lyrics here)

Roses Envelop Reading
(alternate verses that got lost on the way to the stage)

You were terrified
Hunted by a wolf you didn't recognise
Trembling against the wall
As the light shone down on Broad Street Mall
All night.

The only thing you had
Were some albums that you copied off a friend
It was the end
Of life
And you liked it there
Your Art Deco chair was worth it

And the sky above is looking down on you.

And you looked up at the stars and said
Lord give me roses

With their thorns running deep
They'll send everyone to sleep

And the clouds rolled in
Your eyebrows and your feelings
Withered sick and thin

The town became your study
With the clouds painting your ceiling.