Died, December 8, 2020. HAROLD Budd, who has died aged 84 from complications caused by Covid-19, was an influential composer and pianist whose work left its mark with a slow-burning intensity. This was as evident on Brian Eno-produced albums such as The Plateaux of Mirror (1980) as it was on later records with Robin Guthrie, co-founder of the highly acclaimed Scottish band, Cocteau Twins. These included the soundtrack to Gregg Araki’s film, White Bird in a Blizzard (2014), and Another Flower, which was released the week of Budd’s passing. Inbetween came a substantial body of work that felt as elongated as some of the notes played on Budd’s spacious and intricately constructed compositions. Whether working with such fellow travellers or carving out his musical atmospheres solo, Budd’s palette remained constant.
Harold Budd, composer acclaimed as the godfather of ambient music – obituary
His career took off when he began working with Brian Eno, and he became a prophet of minimalism, later collaborating with the Cocteau Twins
Harold Budd
Credit: Steve Thorne/Redferns
Harold Budd, who has died of Covid-19 aged 84, was an American composer, poet and pianist known for his spacious and meditative music based around delicate piano improvisations; he was sometimes called the godfather of ambient music, a description he rejected saying he felt “kidnapped” by the label.
Budd’s career took off in the 1970s when the musician and producer Brian Eno contacted him after hearing his Madrigals of the Rose Angels, a glittery, wordless piece. Eno wanted him to record it in London, though Budd later confessed that he had to call a friend at his local record store to ask who Eno was.
His is the soundtrack within as the blood and skin
Rise translated. His music glides with star fusion,
Just as a distant craft must through space.
Harold Budd seeded stars in his minor keys
And suspensions. A Sculptor at work around silence
He also threaded a shape through air’s loom.
As with the Enos and Gavin Bryars, he soothes
Through sowing sound sprung dark flowers.
He was a cartographer clearly, charting a scented path
Through lost rooms. There was no surrender to time
In Budd’s world, there was instead, a mastery of it.
He found the correct key for dreaming and the tempo