Customer Reviews

Unjust Malaise

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This three-cd set is the first commercially available release by Julius Eastman, a minimaist composer who died in 1990 after having been forgotten by nearly everyone. Before his death he had been evicted from his house, so many of his scores got lost and for years his name disappeared from music annals.

The situation is now redressed by "Unjust Malaise", which comprises seven compositions directed by Mr Eastman himself. They are actually live recordings, but you would never notice as any applause has been edited out and the performance is so perfect that every track sounds like a studio take.

Listening to this music it soon becomes apparent that Mr Eastman was a major figure in the New Music Movement, and even more avant-garde than the avant-garde itself. His minimalist approach (repetitive, insistent structures) was mixed with carefully employed dissonance and 'pop' riffs, a fact that was considered heresy at the time.

Among the compositions (all from the '70s, and extremely notable) we find the poppy "Stay On It", with its breathtaking sax riff, and the gospelly, string-driven "The Holy Presence Of Joan D'Arc", which has an impressive vocal acappella prelude (eleven minutes) and shows that this composer was also a talented singer. Other works such as "[...] Guerilla", "Crazy [...]", "Evil [...]" (all for four pianos) are more sombre, full of spiritual tension and exert a strong emotional pull on the listener.

Julius Eastman had a flamboyant, provocative personality (e.g. he never concealed his homosexuality) and through his work we can perceive and understand the struggle of his soul. And this is how "Unjust Malaise" could ultimately be described: great soul music.