Reich

2.     Tehillim. Auditory canals were awash with the sounds of Philip Glass in my twenties, not for wanting to hear them always but because they were unavoidable. I didn’t quite know at the time that Glass was just one composer in so-called American minimalism that included Terry Riley, John Adams, and Steve Reich. Minimal is the last word you would use to describe the gargantuan, even Wagnerian, efforts made by some of these people subsequently. Steve Reich’s music confronted me from the start because it was at once raw, repetitive in beautiful ways, and simultaneously free and structured. His ensemble music must be a workout for the performers but for me, who is musically incompetent, this music is a ride. I play Reich’s piece using parts of Psalms 18, 19, 34, and 150 at least a couple of times a year. Although full of effect and affect, it is completely unaffected. TehiIlim was released on ECM in 1982, so I would have purchased it about then from the Melbourne University Bookroom, which had a record department upstairs. You can see its orange SECURITY sticker. That creambrick add-on to the Law Buildings has since been demolished, in the interests of better public space and visual harmony. The round red sticker denotes that the album belongs to me and not someone else in the shared student housing we turned into Carlton bohemia during that period. You can’t do that anymore, the rents are too high. Hal-le-lu-hu ba-tzil-tz-lay-sha-mah, as the Psalmist sings, Praise Him with sounding cymbals.