In Harold Budd's Pavilion of Dreams
Transcript
Welcome to Dream Auguries. Tonight we're going to spend some time listening to, and reflecting upon, the album The Pavilion of Dreams
In early 1978, the Sex Pistols announced they were splitting up just a few months after Never Mind the Bollocks had hit #1 in the U.K. Elvis Costello released This Year's Model, The Ramones released Road to Ruin in 1978 and disco was finally on its way out. (Or at least, evolving into EuroPop of the 1980s.)
The composer, Harold Budd, was moving in a very different direction. After years of increasingly minimalist music, Budd recalls: "I realized I had minimalized myself out of a career. It had taken me ten years to reduce my language to ZERO... By then I had opted out of avant-garde music generally; it seemed self-congratulatory and risk-free and my solution as to what to do next was to do nothing, to stop completely."
In the liner notes for the recent re-release of Harold Budd's groundbreaking Pavilion of Dreams, the composer talks about inspiration from the Pre-Raphaelite artists of the 19th century, especially Dante Gabriel Rosetti. His music is likened to "dreamy washes of color" and when discussing his composition "Madrigals of the Rose Angel", he said:
"Whatever a 'rose angel' is, I haven't a clue and it certainly isn't a madrigal, but it's a combination of words that to me is still magic. Absolute magic."
Unsure who might ever produce such an album, Budd sent a cassette tape on the English composer, Gavin Bryars. Bryars, in turn, passed the tape on to Brian Eno who was just starting his own fledging music label.
Eno corresponded with Budd several times (the mid-70s was still a few years away from email). As Eno tells the story: "I explained that there wasn't likely to be a huge financial return, but Harold wasn't at all bothered by that. He was extremely courteous and always easy to work with."
On a shoestring budget, Eno flew Harold Budd, and the alto saxophonist Marion Brown, to London to record at the legendary Basing Street Studios. Brown
As you listen to the opening track, "Bismillah Rrahmani Rrahim" (for which we have a link in the show notes), listen for Marion Brown's beautiful improvisation. Behind it you will hear electric piano, celeste, glockenspiel, marimba and even a harp.
And as you listen to this track, what song might you choose to usher you into dreams? What if, tonight, just before you go to sleep, you put on a track that has a few "dreamy washes of color" and as it carries you into sleep, what dreams might you encounter with that soundtrack?
Pick a song or album that evokes some deep emotion, perhaps from years ago. You never know who or what you might encounter.
Dream Auguries is a weekly reflection series for insomniacs, lucid dreamers, oracles, soothsayers, magicians and conjurers of all kinds. It's bonus content for the film, Dreaming Grand Avenue, now streaming on cable, written and directed by Hugh Schulze.
Our theme music was composed and performed by Tony Scott Green and sound design by Kevin O’Rourke.
Good night.
Links
The Pavilion of Dreams/Harold Budd (full album): https://youtu.be/KSEpSpIrt98
Bismillahi 'Rrahmani 'Rrahim/Harold Budd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSpNJlYIhMA
Buy the vinyl re-issue here: https://www.phonicarecords.com/product/harold-budd-the-pavilion-of-dreams-lp-pre-order-superior-viaduct/178606
Artwork of the Pre-Raphaelites, Gabriel: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/pre-raphaelite, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/dante-gabriel-rossetti-461