40 minutes, 1 second

Harold Budd & Brian Eno
The Plateaux of Mirror

Supposedly, a man landed on the moon in 1969. A tremendous and much-celebrated accomplishment. Yet human beings haven't been back to the moon since. Why not? And in the early 1980s, ambient musicians Harold Budd and Brian Eno recorded two albums together, The Plateaux of Mirror (1980) and The Pearl (1984). Both tremendous and critically acclaimed accomplishments. Yet they've done nothing together since. Why not?

It's a conspiracy, I tell you.

Also today:

40:01 IC 434, Dogondance
40:00 His Name Is Alive, Livonia
39:54 Morrissey, Vauxhall and I
39:53 Autopsia, Palladium
39:52 Modulate, Skullfuck
39:49 Infamis, Upiór
39:46 In Slaughter Natives, The Fifth
39:45 Bel Canto, White-Out Conditions
39:42 Run Level Zero, And Thus We Walked...
39:41 The Last Fall, Unknown Treasures
39:40 Caustic, Booze Up and Riot (CD 2 of 2)
39:40 Claustrum & Traur Zot, Return to the Past by Silence
39:40 Skinny Puppy, Remission
39:39 Mortiis, Ånden som Gjorde Opprør
39:37 Marsen Jules, Herbstlaub

45 minutes, 8 seconds

Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd
Mysterious Skin

Is it unusual to own the soundtrack to a movie you've never seen? Guilty. I'll take it even a step further: I've never even seen any films by Gregg Araki, who directed Mysterious Skin. He was branded some kind of wünderkind back in the '90s for some of his movies (Totally Fucked Up, The Living End, etc.), but apparently I couldn't be bothered to schlep to the theater (or the video store, for that matter) to see them.

Oh, well. There's always the music. And put former Cocteau Twins guitarist Robin Guthrie together with ambient maestro Harold Budd, and I'm powerless to resist. I'm hoping Araki makes more movies. Not so I can see them. Just so I can buy the soundtracks.

Also today:

45:08 Steven Stapleton & David Tibet, Musical Pumpkin Cottage
45:07 Garmarna, Vengeance
45:06 Current 93, Dogs Blood Rising
45:06 Front Line Assembly, Tactical Neural Implant

47 minutes, 39 seconds

Harold Budd & Zeitgeist
She Is a Phantom

I got a couple of new Harold Budd CDs in the mail last week. Not unexpected--I ordered them, after all--but surprising to see that Budd is still active, not long after he'd announced his retirement (after the release of the 2004 double-disc set Avalon Sutra.) Then I read this bit in the Wikipedia entry on Budd: "Samadhisound released a podcast of Harold Budd in conversation with Akira Rabelais in April 2007. In this (Samadhisound Podcast #2), Harold said although he had believed at the time of recording Avalon Sutra that it would be his last album, he no longer felt that way."

Hence the CDs I got in the mail, two collaborations (Budd-y records?) with former Cocteau Twins guitarist Robin Guthrie, with whom Budd also worked on the Mysterious Skin soundtrack as well as the '80s Cocteau Twins-Harold Budd collaboration The Moon and the Melodies.

Viva Budd. Long may he pound out sustained piano chords.

Also today:

47:38 Hedningarna, Trä
47:37 SnowW.Wwhite, Wonderland
47:37 Trobar de Morte, Reverie
47:37 The Wardrobe, A Sandwich Short
47:35 Harold Budd, Lovely Thunder
47:32 Bel Canto, Birds of Passage
47:30 Iambia, Prometheus
47:29 Lunascape, Reflecting Seyelence
47:28 Calva y Nada, ¡Palpita, Corazón, Palpita!
47:27 Life Cried, Drawn & Quartered
47:27 Various artists, Scontrum, Act V

52 minutes, 31 seconds

John Foxx & Harold Budd
Drift Music

Harold Budd has probably made more albums in collaboration with other artists than he has on his own. Yet whether he's recording with Brian Eno, Robin Guthrie, Hector Zazou, or here with John Foxx, you can always identify his unmistakable piano sound. Which makes me wonder about the creative process when two artists with well-defined careers work together on a given piece of music. Do they compose together, blending (and perhaps bending) their sound to match the other's? Or do they work independently, then try to patch together their ideas in the studio?

I remember reading somewhere about two ambient artists who'd collaborated by mail. I guess one would send the other his recordings, and that artist would in turn "manipulate" them and, I assume, augment them with his own music. It's an interesting way to create music, and perhaps it's a good deal more common than I think. And I'd imagine it depends on both artists not being too possessive of their music. In other words, being OK with someone taking what you've created and then turning it into quite possibly something else entirely.

Also today:

52:30 Ab Ovo, Triode
52:30 Azam Ali, Elysium for the Brave
52:30 Caustic, Booze Up and Riot (CD 1 of 2)
52:30 Tribe of Circle, The Advent of Redemption
52:28 Morthound, Spindrift
52:28 Ulf Söderberg, Vindarnas Hus
52:25 Corvus Corax, Tritonus

62 minutes, 32 seconds

Harold Budd
Luxa

A few elements you could call "jazz" peek out from time to time on Luxa, but otherwise this album shares many textural traits with Budd's much-loved 1988 release The White Arcades: a moody, melancholy sustained piano phrasing; sparse keyboard atmospherics; and Budd's ever-present inscrutable song titles.

It's nearly spring, but this album just has a way of making everything feel autumnal.

Also today:

62:29 Dark Sanctuary, Exaudi Vocem Meam, Part I
62:29 Front Line Assembly, State of Mind
New arrival! 79:03 Architect, Lower Lip Interface
New arrival! 75:10 Architect, The Analysis of Noise Trading

63 minutes, 8 seconds

Harold Budd
The Serpent (In Quicksilver) & Abandoned Cities

I'm not normally one for twangy guitars, but Harold Budd could probably play the kazoo and chances are I'd listen rapturously. There's a desolate, lonely, spaghetti-Western-on-Quaaludes quality to the first few tracks on this disc, and then it shifts into two longer pieces (the Abandoned Cities portion of the CD), both of which considerably amp up the foreboding, dark-ambient quotient. Probably some of the darkest material Budd ever recorded.

Which is noteworthy, because of all the serious ambient composers I've come across, he's typically the most romantic-sounding. His piano-based pieces are rich with sustained chords and fortified with violins, guitars, and other instruments you can actually pick out--unlike, say, the studio-effects-laden work of Brian Eno.

This CD is worth seeking out, along with the rest of Budd's back catalog. It's rare for ambient music to tell a good story (Budd is a master at song titles too), and his music speaks volumes.

Also today:

63:07 Terror Against Terror, Psychological Warfare Technology Systems
63:06 Current 93, Sleep Has His House
63:06 Hocico, Odio Bajo el Alma
63:05 Allied Vision, MMBO
63:05 Die Form, Archives & Documents (CD 1 of 2)
63:05 Nullvektor, Stromaufwärts
63:03 Die Form, Die Puppe
63:01 Accessory, Jukka2147.de
63:00 In Strict Confidence, Exile Paradise (CD 1 of 2)
62:59 Ah Cama-Sotz, Terra Infernalis