Harold Budd s Music Was Heaven On Earth By Simon Reynolds | NPR
Steve Thorne / Redferns
Some artists veer wildly between styles from record to record. And then there are those who discover their sonic identity and stick with it, hardly straying from their one true path. Their life s work is the patient art of inflecting and perfecting.
Harold Budd belongs in this second category of artists, those for whom musical style isn t something you can put on and take off like a costume, but a truth that comes from deep within the self that you discover and distill. Over the course of his four-decade discography, Budd s music floated between ambient, minimalist composition, and dream-pop, but ultimately evaded those categories to gently assert itself as a wholly individual voice. Cherished by a devoted group of fans and admired by musical collaborators like Brian Eno, Cocteau Twins and XTC s Andy Partridge, Budd s slow, tranquil compositions centered around
Harold Budd - Master Of Ambient Music Dies Published 11/12/20
Harold Budd at Bill Nelson’s 70th Birthday concert, Leeds 2018.Photo: Martin Bostock Photography
Tributes have been paid by the music community around the world to American composer and pianist Harold Budd, often cited as one of the founding fathers of ambient, who died from complications of Covid-19 following an earlier stroke in November.
Graduating from the University of Southern California, in 1966, he wrote a number of minimalist pieces before taking a teaching position at the California Institute of Arts in 1970 and released his first studio album,
The Oak Of The Golden Dreams / Coeur D’Orr, that same year.
Steve Thorne / Redferns
Originally published on December 10, 2020 9:44 am
Some artists veer wildly between styles from record to record. And then there are those who discover their sonic identity and stick with it, hardly straying from their one true path. Their life s work is the patient art of inflecting and perfecting.
Harold Budd belongs in this second category of artists, those for whom musical style isn t something you can put on and take off like a costume, but a truth that comes from deep within the self that you discover and distill. Over the course of his four-decade discography, Budd s music floated between ambient, minimalist composition, and dream-pop, but ultimately evaded those categories to gently assert itself as a wholly individual voice. Cherished by a devoted group of fans and admired by musical collaborators like Brian Eno, Cocteau Twins and XTC s Andy Partridge, Budd s slow, tranquil compositions centered around his own piano playing. The Los Angeles-b