THE YOUNG GODS
THE YOUNG GODS PLAY TERRY RILEY IN C
The Young Gods are publishing a new record with Two Gentlemen, ‘Play Terry Riley In C’. Needless to say this is a fertile meeting between two monuments who have helped shape the cutting-edge music of the last few decades. Terry Riley, born in 1935, is the cornerstone on which a considerable number of artists have relied to liberate their relationship to the process and methods of creation. In the same way, The Young Gods revolutionised, from the second half of the 1980s, their relationship with rock music by converting guitars into samplers. The dialogue between these two pioneers underpins a particularly fiery record.
Composed and premiered in 1964, In C is a major piece in the contemporary music repertoire of the second half of the 20th century, and a pivotal moment in its history. In C is innovative in several respects – first of all in its structure: its score is reduced to 53 musical phrases, which each musician must repeat in the order in which they appear, as many times as he or she wishes; the instrumentarium is not specified; the impetus for the performance is not given (vertically) by an orchestral direction, but (horizontally) by the musicians listening to one another. The result is a perfectly open work, constructed in a participatory manner by all the performers.
This particular structure influences the musical nature of the piece: In C (and this is another of its revolutionary characteristics) was the first work to offer a successful synthesis of repetition and variation. To immerse oneself in it is to experience a pulsation, a swirling fabric of sound, but different with each completed orbit.
This is a 14+ event. 14 and 15 year old’s MUST be accompanied by an adult
