Daniel Lentz (performed by Arlene Dunlap) - Point Conception (1984)

An epic 36-minute work for nine piano parts played in octaves, overdubbed in a 'cascading echo system', Point Conception was written by Pennsylvania-born composer Daniel Lentz in 1979.  It was named for the headland on the California coast that separates Southern and Central CA, and the layers of piano performed by Lentz's longtime collaborator Arlene Dunlap ably evoke the ebb and flow of the great tides.  The seemingly endless waves of sound are often like a grander version of John Adams' early piano pieces, e.g. Phrygian Gates.  Stirring stuff.

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pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG: Music For Three Pianos, with Harold Budd & Ruben Garcia

Harold Budd, Ruben Garcia, Daniel Lentz - Music For Three Pianos (1992)

In a classic case of great minds thinking alike... this same album went up on Opium Hum at the weekend.  Music For Three Pianos is simply too good not to share as widely as possible, so I'm keeping it in the schedule here.

This 1992 collaboration between Harold Budd and two fellow pianists might barely qualify as an album at all, lasting a scant 21 minutes; but it doesn't waste a single note.  After letting these six stunningly beautiful melodies wash over you , there's a definite feeling that a perfectly self-contained album experience has been packed into the brief running time, and that any lengthening would spoil the effect.  I actually experimented with running Music For Three Pianos at half-speed to see how a full-length LP might've sounded - it really didn't work!  Better to just start the whole thing again when it ends - I often do.

The sympathetic production, for which krautrock/Berlin-school legend Michael Hoenig was partly responsible, adds just enough reverb where it's needed; the echoing silences in the opening track Pulse-Pause-Repeat are just as important as the notes.  If I had to pick out a favourite track here - I guess to do so would be more like picking a favourite movement from a perfectly-integrated piano sonata - it would either be the achingingly gorgeous penultimate one, The Messenger, or the gently rolling arpeggios of closer La Casa Bruja, where just like on Plateaux Of Mirror, Budd's compositional economy shines brightest.

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