Recorded reside in Berlin in 1975 however not launched till 1982, Descending Moonshine Dervishes represents a continuation of the cadenza-like improvisations Riley captured on Persian Surgical procedure Dervishes, recorded between 1971 and 1972 in Los Angeles and Paris. The titles of each albums, with their reference to Sufism’s whirling worshippers, supply a way of the spinning motions of the music, a blur of arpeggiated figures and knotty patterns unfold throughout the left and proper fingers. On each albums, he used a Yamaha YC 45D electrical organ whose sign was routed into a fancy delay chain, and in each circumstances, the organ was modified to play in simply intonation, a tuning system whose shiny, wide-open intervals sound faintly alien to listeners accustomed to Western music’s equal temperament.
Attempting to tease out particular variations between Descending Moonshine Dervishes and Persian Surgical procedure Dervishes is somewhat bit like evaluating a single stretch of river in numerous climate circumstances. However the place the keyboard within the 1971-72 concert events is heat and radiant, with an nearly churchly forged, Descending Moonshine Dervishes strikes a extra unsettling observe, brittle and sometimes buzzing with overtones. Riley’s chords really feel subtly distorted, bent out of form. Listening to the best way sure chords appear to tug away from the foundation observe, I think about magnetic fields at work. In locations, the organ’s reed-like tone sounds nearly medieval, conjuring photographs of felt-hatted pipers in cobblestoned city squares, despite the fact that Riley’s repertoire of polyrhythms and melodic figures are rooted within the ragas that he was finding out in India with the classical singer Pandit Pran Nath.
“It’s not rocket science,” Riley quipped of his approach. However even when you understand the nuts and bolts of how he made the music, it’s tough to parse the underlying mechanics. You may have the ability to pinpoint the slap-back delay, however any try to decipher which hand is enjoying what, or which phrases are an impact of the tape versus being performed in actual time, is futile. The peculiarities of the Yamaha organ, with its two manuals, a number of registers, and tone-control levers, lend to shape-shifting timbres. Riley is a remarkably dexterous participant even with out using results; listening to him right here, geared up with what for the time was a novel and high-tech setup, it’s onerous to fathom that simply two fingers are liable for every part that comes streaming from the audio system, with no overdubs.
Over the album’s 51-minute runtime, the music is continually evolving. Sluggish, contemplative melodies morph imperceptibly into icy waterfalls of trebly tones and again into bassy dirges. Sweetly consonant harmonies all of the sudden curdle, throwing off bitter, complicated dissonance. Tinkling chimes counsel angelic symphonies. Often, a phased buzz anticipates the tubular glow of early Oneohtrix Level By no means. But all these modifications occur completely seamlessly, and with one thing approaching bliss. Round this time, Riley was performing all-night concert events, giving him an much more ample canvas to experiment along with his psychedelically enveloping concepts. Descending Moonshine Dervishes likewise appears like a snapshot of a for much longer continuum, a quick snippet of infinity rendered in probably the most rapturous phrases. One of many central motifs, a rising and falling four-note determine, is nearly childlike; I think about a five-year-old’s singsong question—“Are we there but?”—repeated again and again because the panorama flies by the backseat home windows in a blur. The pleasure, after all, is within the journey; the enjoyment of Riley’s piece is in deferring the ultimate vacation spot so long as potential.
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