Smashbomb

"Again, I've gone for the "pop" album - I've gone for the greatest hit. I thought about all his records and the minimalist composers, and I could have gone for a Terry Riley record or whatever, but there's a reason this is his hit. I could come back and listen to this any time. One of the greatest live music experiences of my life was when Steve Reich had his 70th birthday at the Barbican, and he came over with his musicians and did nearly all of his classic pieces. I saw Drumming and other stuff, and then I saw this at a little church across the street from the Barbican and it's so beautiful, so gorgeous. Really, really moving. Having said that, this year Kieran and I booked a trip of DJ gigs because we hadn't seen each other in a while, and we played the Snowbombing festival in Austria, which was hilarious. We were driving around, so we hired my friend who's this really placid Czech guy. He's the driver on all my tours and I've never seen him get agitated about anything ever. Most people who drive primarily for a living are prone to road rage, but I've never seen him lose it. So he asked us if we wanted to put on any music so on went Music For 18 Musicians. He's not really a music fan - if you put on Albert Ayler he'd be like, "Jesus Christ, what are you trying to do to me here?!" So we were driving through the Alps, I was chatting to him and Kieran and listening to this piece of music that I love. I didn't really notice but he'd gone silent and 40 minutes in he was like, "Um, excuse me, this music's driving me insane, can we please turn it off?" To me it's the opposite of that, it's the most soothing music possible, so I guess that illustrates that it's not for everyone."

Source

Kudos

Cate Le Bon recommended Barrett by Syd Barrett in Music (curated)

Barrett by Syd Barrett

1970 | Psychedelic, Folk

9.0

(1 Ratings)

Album Favorite

"I was probably 21 and I was doing a lot of driving between North and South Wales. Two of my friends that I was making music with lived in a beautiful cottage in the mountains. There isn't a very good radio reception on the A470, and I was driving a classic car – a Proton! – which had a tape player. I would go to Cob Records in Porthmadog and buy a handful of tapes – classics like Michael Jackson and Madonna that would always get preference in the tape player. They were real sing-along records that were great for driving. Eventually, I remember being absolutely sick to the back teeth of them and decided to give the album Barrett a go. I knew who Syd Barrett was but never really had collected his music. I put this tape in and could not make head nor tail of what I was listening to. I couldn't unravel the songs from the music that was going on. But, weirdly, on these drives I had the compulsion to keep putting it in the tape player and because it was a tape I couldn't be bothered to do any fast-forwarding or rewinding to try and find the next song or flick through impatiently to the final song that I liked. I kind of just had to stick it out with this record. Amazingly, eventually all these songs began to show themselves and what had started off as a really arduous task became hugely, hugely rewarding. For that reason – it being a record I genuinely fell in love with and now absolutely love – I feel wholly thankful that I got it on a tape as opposed to any other format, as I think I could have completely missed it or not stuck with it. It is one of those albums that maybe I don't listen to very often anymore, but I have wonderful memories of and love deeply."

Source

Kudos