#different trains

[grrlmusic]

Steve Reich - Different Trains (1988)

[spurloser]

[nonesuchrecords]

It was 35 years ago today: the first recording of Steve Reich's Different Trains and Electric Counterpoint, performed by Kronos Quartet and Pat Metheny, respectively, was released on Nonesuch. You can hear it and get it on vinyl here.

“A work of such originality that ‘breakthrough’ seems the only possible description," the New York Times exclaimed of Different Trains, which went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition. Pitchfork named the record one of the 200 Best Albums of the 1980s.

[mikrokosmos]

Reich - Different Trains

I wasn’t expecting to be taken away by this piece the first time I listened to it, but, yes this is a cliche, my breath was taken away. Using a string quartet and recorded loops of interviews, train tracks, whistles, and sirens, Reich creates an impressionist painting of trains, while telling a story. The first movement revolves around the height of US transcontinental railroads, and how people were connected like never before. While the early 20th century was the height of train travel, the second movement becomes a grotesque picture of Europe during the second world war, and the interviewees share their experiences hiding from Nazi soldiers as sirens wail like screams. Trains taking millions of people to the death camps. The third movement comes back to the US after the war, and focuses on the decline of train travel as planes and cars take over as the main motives for transportation. The piece is mostly built out of paradiddles, save for the last movement that introduces a fugato subject in the beginning, and all of the melodies come from segments of speech, the intonation of various phrases are mimicked through pitch [”From Chicago to New York”... ”Different trains everyday”... “Then he said ‘don’t breathe!”... “But today, they’re all gone”]. Something about the predictable rhythmic pattern makes this piece a hypnotic journey. And I don’t care if this is cheesy; I loved listening to this piece while taking the train downtown and back again. It felt like an anthem to the city.

Movements:

1. America - Before the War

2. Europe - During the War

3. After the War

[kickerofelves]

Different Trains movement I: America — Before the War -- Steve Reich

[nonesuchrecords]

It was 30 years ago today: Steve Reich's Different Trains / Electric Counterpoint, performed by Kronos Quartet and Pat Metheny, respectively, was released on Nonesuch. Different Trains went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition, and Pitchfork included the album among the 200 Best Albums of the 1980s. Nonesuch reissued it on vinyl in November. Listen again here.

[nonesuchrecords]

To celebrate the return of Steve Reich’s Different Trains on vinyl for the first time in more than 25 years, here’s a new mini-documentary about the groundbreaking piece.

[an-album-cover-a-day]

Steve Reich, Different Trains - Electric Counterpoint