Michael Nyman - piano (track A1), percussion, (track B1)
Nigel Shipway - percussion (track B1)
Composed by Michael Nyman
From 1968 to 1976, Michael Nyman worked as a music critic for various magazines (Studio International, Time Out, Tempo, The New Stateman or The Spectator). He studied 16th and 17th c. baroque music in the mid-1960s, composing only a handful of musical pieces prior to the present ‘Decay Music’ in 1976, the real starting point of his carreer as a composer. ‘1-100’ is an auto-generative composition for piano that feeds itself along the way while remaining fairly minimal throughout. The track is played at half the speed it was recorded. It was written for Peter Greenaway's film of the same title but rejected because it was too long. It was inspired by Frederic Rzewski's Les Moutons de Panurge, which Nyman often played with the Scratch Orchestra. ‘Bell Set No.1’ is a brilliant pseudo-gamelan composition with a slight touch of ‘Pump and Circumstances’. The interprets are Nigel Shipway and Michael Nyman on metallophones, ie: bells, triangle, gongs, cymbals and tam-tam. ‘Bell Set No.1’ is a system piece based on the percussions’ sharp attack and slow decay, alternatively enhancing each. It works perfectly as a sound installation devoid of progression or change, without beginning nor end. ‘Bell Set’ is a gorgeous piece of upper-class british gamelan played with tongues firmly in cheek as if composed for an imaginary tea ceremony at Windsor Castle. Note: as with the entire Obscure series, LP pressing quality is bad, probably made from recycled vinyl. It seems the Island Record A&R manager who commissioned it didn’t believe in any commercial potential for the series.
