This is our second retrospective of the music of Southern California ambient/minimalist composer HAROLD BUDD. Part 1 covered 1978 to 2006, when he announced his "retirement" at age 70. He wasn't serious. After a brief rest, he was more active than ever. Between then and his death at the end of 2020, he added 16 additional collaborations, soundtracks, and solo albums to his already large catalog.
Early in his career, Budd rejected the ugly, dissonant sounds of the 20th century avant-garde, embraced traditional consonant tonality, and made it new: “In my music the focus has shifted to consonance as a thing in itself," he told The New York Times in 1987. "I hear an absolute whole life in consonant chords.”
His classic "soft pedal" piano style, described as "yearning piano motifs and reverb-laden impressionism," developed and matured during his work with BRIAN ENO. After making his reputation in England, Budd returned to Los Angeles and started a second family in his 60's. While the early years had been about establishing his approach to meditative, atmospheric music, now he worked with sympatico English ambient guitarists who instinctively understood the aesthetics of his "poetic dreamworlds" and "esoteric reveries." Budd relaxed into his comfort zone, while expanding into film and TV scoring and chamber music. His career had a certain inverse symmetry: after abandoning academic classical music in the beginning, at the end he was writing for string quartets.
On this transmission of Hearts of Space, our second HAROLD BUDD retrospective called TRANSLUCENT DRIFTS, featuring late solo works and collaborations with ROBIN GUTHRIE, CLIVE WRIGHT, and JOHN FOXX.
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