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Mar 14, 2018Both works are performed by the groups for which they were written, Pulse for the US-based International Contemporary Ensemble, Quartet for the Colin Currie Group, and the close-up perspective of the recordings suits both pieces perfectly.
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MagnetApr 17, 2018The dominant strain is melodically powerful modern jazz where "Mvt.-1" and "Mvt.-III" are the triumphant highlights with joyous Paper Chase and Jittery Peanuts reference points. [No. 150, p.55]
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The WireApr 5, 2018Something about its balance between geometric elegance and genuine emotiveness gets at the heart of what makes him a great composer. The playful movement lends a sense of humanity to the structure, and the structure lends rigour to the dance. [Apr 2018, p.60]
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UncutMar 14, 2018His style remains unequivocally distinctive on these two succinct pieces. [Apr 2018, p.32]
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Q MagazineMar 14, 2018A brilliant distillation of Reich's twin enduring motifs: repetition and melancholia. [Apr 2018, p.112]
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Mar 14, 2018It's a remarkable record, a reminder of that Reich, unlike many composers of his era, has not become archive material. He continues to speak to the cutting edge of music, to experiment with new compositional directions, to be vital.
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Mar 14, 2018The palette is tender, and the changes subtle: it’s like climbing a mountain, the same view altering by slight increments over the course of the ascent.
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Mar 14, 2018Pristine and reflective, both compositions slowly reveal themselves to attentive listeners as contemplative, yet no less accessible, works of pristine beauty. ICE and the Colin Currie Group deserve just as much praise for their carefully considered performances on this excellent release.
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Mar 14, 2018Pulse/Quartet could be used as a gateway to expose a new generation of music fans to minimalist, experimental ambient music from one the movement's finest composers.
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Mar 14, 2018For die hard Reich fans, these recordings may not reveal anything wildly different than what has preceded in a vast corpus. Reich is a composer whose work contains great nuance, and it is certainly the case for Pulse / Quartet. These are recordings that demand a few listens, they are worth it. Allow yourself to get lost in them.
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Mar 14, 2018Compared to the live versions you’ll find on YouTube, these studio takes lack the undersong of the concert hall, the beating pulse of the audience’s internal clocks, the blood-in-the-ballet-shoes of performance.
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Mar 14, 2018Pulse and Quartet feel plucked from a vacuum, a place where flickers of dissonance yield to waves of redemptive harmony and where the chord always comes back to sparkle. In a world of increasing entropy, these are two too-tidy self-reflections, Reich on what made Reich great.