Terry Riley’s masterpiece – and minimalism, African style

It can be over in 15 minutes. It can last several hours. It can be done with a Wurlitzer – or 20 guitars. Now In C, the defining work of minimalist music, has been tackled by Damon Albarn and Africa Express. Its composer Terry Riley reveals how it all began

Terry Riley is sitting in a quiet corner of the legendary Café Einstein in Berlin’s red-light district. A patient smile plays around his face – but mention the m-word and irritation suddenly ripples through his great candyfloss beard. “Minimalism was never a word we used for what we did,” he says. “It was a tag from the art world someone stuck to us later. My heart sinks when I get emails from music students saying they are writing a ‘minimalist piece’. Once you become an ism, what you’re doing is dead.”

Riley’s problem is that he is the composer of perhaps the defining work of what has become known as minimalist music. In C, the groundbreaking piece he first performed on 4 November 1964, may have become an “ism” but it is no artefact: for its 50th anniversary, tributes and reinterpretations keep coming. A new version – recorded by Damon Albarn and his Africa Express team, with help from Brian Eno and Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs – is out this week. Today, the Californian is in Berlin to meet with the German conductor André de Ridder, who instigated and led this new version, recorded last year in Bamako, the capital of Mali. For his 80th birthday next year, there will be Riley retrospectives at music festivals around the world. The beard will be doing a lot of rippling.

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by Philip Oltermann via Electronic music | The Guardian