Fabricio Chiquio Boppré

1224 days ago

The core Budd sound of yearning piano motifs and reverb-laden impressionism is often called minimalism. But compared with the cyclical craft of Steve Reich and early Philip Glass, his low-key, expansive forays felt deftly maximalist. This has made Budd’s craft synonymous with the dreamworld. An heir to Satie and Debussy, his music was treated and poetic, never kneejerk nor incautious. The disembodied mantras of 1986’s Lovely Thunder, for instance, have guided countless listeners through the nebulous no man’s land between consciousness and sleep.

Harold Budd's sublime music was a gateway to a brighter world

theguardian.com

It’s no coincidence that so many people discovered Harold Budd’s music this year. Restrained and sedate – even sedative – the disembodied drones and rapt minimalism of 1978’s The Pavilion of Dreams and 1984’s The Pearl feel as if they’d been made to confront unsettled times.