Customer Reviews

Glasscuts, Philip Glass Remixed

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

When this album was announced, I was quite looking forward to it; before hearing anything, I compared it to the wonderful work done on "Reich Remixed" which takes some daring approaches to Reich's music and does an excellent job (with a few exceptions) of being new and exciting. Unfortunately, Glass Remixed isn't as daring or as good.

Much of the music is overshadowed with Glass's music and themes. It's as if someone was playing the original music in the background and sound effects were added to it. Throughout listening to Remixed, these sound effects got in the way of the music and I ended up digging out the original pieces and listening to them. However, there are some excellent pieces of interpretation contained within: Etude #2, the Tirol Concerto, and the Saxophone Concerto stand out (especially the Saxophone Concerto since I don't care for the original piece).

The other mark against this effort is all the work had to come from the Orange Mountain Music catalog due to ownership complications. This is not to say there aren't outstanding pieces in the catalog, but this restriction limits most of Glass's seminal works from being considered.

As a huge Glass fan, I was mildly disappointed, but I applaud the effort and the concept behind it.

I just assumed that this would be as equally wonderful, and that Glass' music would be even more translatable into the "trance" genre, or whatever the kids are calling it nowadays.

Sadly, it seems that this was done by junior high kids with a computer and Acid Foundry or whatever that cheap software is.

No creativity, and, oddly enough, not even any real sense of Glass' music still being in the "remix".

I am a huge fan of Glass; I am not a fan of this kind of music, but since I am also a fan of Reich and since, to my total surprise, I am quite enthralled by the Reich Remixed CD, I figured I really needed to give this CD a shot.

What a waste. This is totally amateur, but without the occasional genius that some amateur can manage. Strictly, totally, and banal amateur yuckiness.

Yeah, it's fun and easy to beat up on remix albums since there are so many mediocre and terrible ones out there... but, wait: here's a great idea... let's give the pioneering, repetitive, trance-like minimalist music of Philip Glass the remix treatment... after all, Reich: Remixed was fabulous... surely the same kind of creativity can be unleashed in this project... But alas, something went terribly wrong here... these are mostly unbearably monotonous, grating, overlong, amateurish productions by remixers who don't seem to even GET (or enjoy?) Glass' music. A real missed opportunity and a huge letdown... ick...

This is just another insipid release from the Orange Mountain label, which keeps putting out anything with the Philip Glass
name on it - even if it is flagrant garbage. Several releases have been issued which about 90% have the same old songs, just performed by different people. In fact, Philip Glass has become more banal and bovine in the last few years because he knows anything with his name on it will sell to the trendy modernistic music crowd. Overall, I believe it is time to stop
recycling Glass.

The nature of Philip Glass' work is that it spans the divide between high and low art through the fragmentation of more traditional classical structures. This fragmentation is rebuilt using a framework that at times very closely resembles rock, techno, and other forms of pop music.

It is precisely because of this that Glass' composition lends itself perfectly to both the idea and act of remixing. Because his music is essentially remixing more classical elements to a more pop form, his own music has already "sampled", and this is one logical extension of his work.

This album includes many skillfully remixed tracks which do more than add a drum beat beneath samples of Glass. They enhance the expectation, tension, and release that each piece already has.

This music should be categorized under the "popular music" category, not "classical". All the pieces have an incessant drum beat typical of popular music. This is unlike any other Philip Glass CD that I have and I have about a dozen of them. Where can I get rid of this?