Terry Riley
Born in Colfax, California, Riley studied at Shasta College, San Francisco State University. He was involved in the experimental San Francisco Tape Music Center working with Morton Subotnick, Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros and Ramon Sender. His most influential teacher, however, was Pandit Pran Nath (1918-1996), a master of Indian classical voice, who also taught La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela.
Born in Colfax, California, Riley studied at Shasta College, San Francisco State University. He was involved in the experimental San Francisco Tape Music Center working with Morton Subotnick, Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros and Ramon Sender. His most influential teacher, however, was Pandit Pran Nath (1918-1996), a master of Indian classical voice, who also taught La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela.
Early Works For Tape And Electronics
Unofficial release. Few copies available. Terry Riley's incredible early tape manipulation works from the 1960s, “Bird of Paradise” and “You’re No Good. Incredible audio quality
Six Pianos / Keyboard Study #1
After the widely noticed performance at the "Acht Brücken Festival 2016" at Cologne's Philharmonic Hall, Gregor Schwellenbach, Hauschka, Erol Sarp (of Grandbrothers), Daniel Brandt and Paul Frick (both of Brandt Brauer Frick) and John Kameel Farah release their interpretation of Steve Reich's "Six Pianos" as a studio recording via FILM. The re-recording of this piece is an interpretation of Reich's composition but still far more than just that - it is a modern approach to his idea behind it. The…
Terry Riley and Krishna Bhatt Duo
Double-CD set presenting two radio sessions recorded in Cologne in 1984, carefully remastered from the original reel-to-reel tapes, an astonishing example of Terry's tactile and meditative approach - and audio quality is just crystal! Emotive and trance-inducing, it's like finding a new, secret entrance to one of our favourite composers.Considered one of the pioneers (along with colleague La Monte Young) of the minimalist movement, pianist-composer Terry Riley introduced the concept of endless r…
Church Of Anthrax
Replica mini-LP edition. Terry Riley (piano, organ, soprano saxophone) & John Cale (bass, harpsichord, piano, guitar, viola, organ) collaborated on this one-off album, released in 1970. At this time, rock music was a serious movement, removed from the joke it once was, quite unaware of the joke it would eventually become, and things like this sometimes happened. Cale, classically trained on the viola, must have been pretty pleased to get a shot to record with the '60s king of minimalist pu…
Rainbow In Cologne
Mystical, largely organ-based live concert by legendary experimental composer Terry Riley. Terry Riley’s organ and tape loops concerts are the stuff of legend and it’s pretty marvelous to finally have this astonishing performance released. "Minimalist composer Terry Riley premiered his work 'In C' in 1964, a big influence on minimalism in contemporary composition and on subsequent works bycomposers like Philip Glass, Steve Reich and John Adams. 1967’s 'A Rainbow In Curved Air' and its companionp…
The 3 Generations Trio
The 3 Generations Trio' features the high priest of minimalism himself, Terry Riley, on synthesizer, piano, vocals and harmonizer, Gyan Riley on electric and acoustic guitars and Tracy Silverman on acoustic and electric violins. This work is a fascinating sonic trip (often driven by Riley's unique vocal ragas) through Asian and African traditions as well as western classical and jazz, reworked through modern aesthetics.
Live In Koln February 23, 1975
2016 Repress. A legendary recording that pairs Don Cherry’s heavenly trumpet stylings, Terry Riley’s psychedelic/minimalist organ work and the vibes of Bengt Berger in a great live concert recorded in Koln in 1975. Riley is in stunning form playing the kind of endlessly rippling dosed organ drones with a sense of stasis in expansion that is uniquely brain-razzing. Cherry’s playing is heart-stoppingly beautiful, curling slow, melancholy arcs and threading high angel tones through Riley’s e…
One Earth, One People, One Love: Kronos Plays Terry Riley (5-CD
In honor of groundbreaking American composer Terry Riley’s 80th birthday, Nonesuch Records releases One Earth, One People, One Love: Kronos Plays Terry Riley—a five-disc box set of four albums of his work composed for, and performed by, his longtime friends and champions Kronos Quartet—on June 23, 2015, in North America and July 10 for the rest of the world. Riley and Kronos met more than 35 years ago, and since then, the quartet has commissioned 27 works from him, more than from any other compo…
In C
A very special and unique performance of Terry Riley's iconic 1964 minimalist piece "In C", previously unreleased. Riley and the Roberto Cacciapaglia Ensemble together at the Aterforum festival in Ferrara, Italy, on July 9, 1988.
Aleph
In his liner notes to Aleph, Terry Riley explains that the work was created as "an improvised meditation on the various meanings of this supreme emanation from the Hebrew alphabet." It was made using a Korg Triton Studio 88 synth with his own sound design, and employing a just intonation scale used by Lou Harrison on his last work, "Nek Chand for Just Intonation National Steel Guitar," which was performed by Riley's son Gyan on the album Serenado. Riley has been using the scale for some time. Th…
I Like Your Eyes Liberty
"A new collaboration by poet Michael McClure and Terry Riley recorded at the Sri Moonshine Ranch (2003-2004) features the mesmerizing voice of McClure on his own Plumstones: Cartoons Of No Heaven and Ghost Tantras. Riley creates a spellbinding counterpart on his Yamaha Midi Grand piano improvising an effortless undulating sound current which sensuously embraces the rich imagery. A real marriage of two masters of psychedelia."
The Harp Of New Albion
The Harp of New Albion is a transfixing solo piano recording, conceived and performed by world-renowned minimalist composer, the ever-innovative Terry Riley. His inspiration for this work came from a legendary harp, left behind in the New World in 1579, on the shores of Nova Albion, which is now called San Francisco Bay. A Native American medicine man is said to have found the harp and placed it on a cliff where the westerly winds played upon it and temperature and humidity changes created an ev…
Lisbon Concert
The highly influential composer and improviser recorded live in Lisbon at the Festival Dos Capuchos, 16th July 1995. "This gorgeous set of piano improvisations reflects minimalist composer Terry Riley's lifelong study of Indian music. It is an outstanding recording which captures Terry Riley at an inspired peak. Performances of such spontaneous and beautiful music are scarce and even less-frequently performed by the composer himself at such a late stage in an extraordinary career. To soun…
Autodreamographical
Despite being midway through his seventies, minimalist icon Terry Riley shows no signs of slowing down or satisfying his searching experimental appetite. On Autodreamographical Tales Riley embarks upon a musical dream diary, a project initiated in 1996. The resultant pieces play out chiefly as spoken-word passages given musical accompaniment, with Riley scoring his own strange REM meanderings via an array of MIDI instruments and piano pieces. At various points during the course of the album you …
Olson III
A piece of unrelenting intensity, Olson III may be one of the most powerful compositions from minimalist composer Terry Riley. Based on the same phasing principals of In C, Olson III is filled with short motives that each ensemble member must play and repeat before moving onto the next. A chorus singing "To begin" joins into the droning fray of string instruments, sawing away à la In C. For 53 minutes here, Riley (on soprano saxophone) and a teenage student orchestra at the Nacka School of Music…
in C
Features three Terry Riley pieces: "In C", "In DO(M)", "In Moscow". "In April 2000 the American composer and performer on the keyboard Terry Riley performed in Moscow: one evening at Moscow Conservatory's Rachmaninoff Hall, which was the closing evening of the SKIF #4 (the Sergey Kuryokhin International Festival), and in two days at a large-scale concert at the Cultural Center 'DOM', which was the opening concert of the 13th 'Alternativa' festival of contemporary music. At the opening concert of…
Keyboard Study 2 / Initiative (+Systèmes)
A split release between Terry Riley and French avant-garde composer Pierre Marietan that was recorded in Paris on September 30th and October 1st, 1969. Riley's piece is a 24-minute work for 2 pianos (Gérard Frémy and Martine Joste of the GERM ensemble - Groupe d'Etude et Réalisation Musicale). Marieten's piece is performed by the full GERM ensemble including Philippe Blachette (violin), Philippe Drogoz (double bass), Louis Roquin (trumpet), Chantal Lemaire (cello), Gérard Frémy (piano), Martine …
Chanting the Light of Foresight
a beautiful album, Riley composed the pieces on this album for the legendary ROVA Saxophone Quartet. The work is based on the Taín Bó Cuailnge ("The Cattle Raid of Cooley"), an invasion of Ulster by the armies of Medb and Ailill. Long out of print
No Man\'s Land
this glistening, pulsating CD for No Man's Land soundtrack documents another stage in the flux of influence and invention that makes Riley's music. This album is much more closer to the 'real' minimalism, with Riley maily playing organ, but the tablas and sitar can be heard on almost every track, along with some voice and what sounds like electronically altered instruments. Few copies available, long out of print
Happy Ending
Happy Ending contains the soundtrack to Joel Santoni's Les Yeux Fermes (1972), reissued together with Lifespan (1974) as Les Yeux Fermes & Lifespan (Elision Fields, 2007). The soundtrack itself consists of two lengthy pieces: the grave Journey From A Death of a Friend for organ and piano (the highlight of the album), and the lightweight Happy Endings for piano and saxophone (reminiscent of Poppy Nogood). Only copy available.