Harold Budd

LUXA (Gyroscope)
by Joshua Brown

If you’ve ever sat in a quiet, ancient movie theater and taken a moment to listen to the ghosts of old dreams, old laughs, old wars, awkward dates, young couples and newlyweds whose bodies may now be covered by dirt but whose faces and voices float about felt but unrecognized, then you’ll appreciate Harold Budd‘s music. He divides the sixteen songs of his minimalist narrative LUXA into four chapters. The first, “Butterflies With Tits,” comprising the first six compositions, could depict a scene similar to the one just described. The title implies idealized female-ness hovering above the scene, characterized by Budd’s free-form piano cascading lightly atop a breathy foundation of ambience. “Inexact Shadows” (tracks 7, 8, and 9), distills Budd’s minimalism even further, leaving behind the awe of unfamiliarity, approaching a dream-like suspension of disbelief where long-gone dramas are given a private screening. Tracks 10 through 14, “Smoke Trees,” dissolve this facade and offer a glimpse of limbo. The disc closes with two covers, Marion Brown’s “Sweet Earth Flying” and Steven Brown’s “Pleasure.” The title of this chapter is “Laughing Innuendos,” and its purpose is not to let these memories remain fearsome and morose, but to help us see the humor in creation. Harold Budd, an American composer born in 1936, received his graduate degree in composition from USC in `66 and taught at the California Institute of the Arts from `70-’76. He was a strong presence in `60s avant garde, possessing enough patience to write a 24-hour piece for a solo gong. It wasn’t until the `80s, however, with two solo albums and collaborations with Brian Eno and the Cocteau Twins, that he recorded any of his work. LUXA, Budd’s first solo outing since 1991, is a work of fleeting, boundless depth that requires faith and attention to absorb.