Harold Budd
Encyclopedia
Harold Budd is an American ambient
/avant-garde
composer
and poet
. Born in Los Angeles, he was raised in the Mojave Desert
, and was inspired at an early age by the humming tone caused by wind blown across telephone wires.
(having studied under Ingolf Dahl
) with a degree in musical composition. As he progressed, his compositions became increasingly minimal
. Among his more experimental works were two drone music
pieces, "Coeur d'Orr" and "The Oak of the Golden Dreams".
After composing a long-form gong
solo titled "Lirio", he felt he had reached the limits of his experiments in minimalism and the avant-garde. He retired temporarily from composition in 1970 and began a teaching career at the California Institute of the Arts
.
"The road from my first colored graph piece in 1962 to my renunciation of composing in 1970 to my resurfacing as a composer in 1972 was a process of trying out an idea and when it was obviously successful abandoning it. The early graph piece was followed by the Rothko orchestra work, the pieces for Source Magazine, the Feldman
-derived chamber works, the pieces typed out or written in longhand, the out-and-out conceptual works among other things, and the model drone works (which include the sax and organ "Coeur d'Orr" and "The Oak of the Golden Dreams", the latter based on the Bali
nese "Slendro
" scale which scale I used again 18 years later on "The Real Dream of Sails").
"In 1970 with the "Candy-Apple Revision" (unspecified D-flat major) and "Lirio" (solo gong "for a long duration") I realized I had minimalized myself out of a career. It had taken ten years to reduce my language to zero but I loved the process of seeing it occur and not knowing when the end would come. By then I had opted out of avant-garde music generally; it seemed self-congratulatory and risk-free and my solution as to what to do next was to do nothing, to stop completely."
"I resurfaced as an artist in 1972 with "Madrigals of the Rose Angel", the first of what would be a cycle of works under the collective title The Pavilion of Dreams
. Madrigals refused to accommodate or even acknowledge any issues in new music. The entire aesthetic was an existential prettiness; not the Platonic
"to Kalon", but simply pretty: mindless, shallow and utterly devastating. Female chorus, harp and percussion seemed like a beautiful start. Its first performance was at a Franciscan church in California conducted by Daniel Lentz
."
. Two years later, Harold Budd's debut album The Pavilion of Dreams was released.
Since then he has developed a style of ambient music. His two collaborations with Brian Eno, The Plateaux of Mirror
and The Pearl
, established his trademark atmospheric piano style. On Lovely Thunder
he introduced subtle electronic textures. His thematic 2000 release The Room
saw a return to a more minimalist approach. In 2003, Daniel Lanois
, the renowned producer of U2
and Bob Dylan
, and occasional collaborator of Brian Eno, recorded an impromptu performance of Harold playing the piano in his Los Angeles living room, unaware, and thus realized the album La Bella Vista.
His album Avalon Sutra
from 2004 was billed as "Harold Budd's Last Recorded Work" by the record label Samadhi Sound
. Their press release continued: "Avalon Sutra brings to a conclusion thirty years of sustained musical activity. Asked for his reasons, Budd says only that he feels that he has said what he has to say. With characteristic humility, he concludes, "I don’t mind disappearing!"
A special celebration concert featuring Budd and guest-starring many of the musicians he had worked with throughout his career was presented at Brighton Dome
in May 2005, also billed as being Budd's last public performance.
In spite of this, Budd's soundtrack to the film Mysterious Skin
(a collaboration with Robin Guthrie
) and Music for 'Fragments from the Inside'
(with Eraldo Bernocchi
) were both released in 2005.
David Sylvian
's independent record label Samadhisound released Perhaps in February 2007, a live recording of Budd's improvised performance in tribute to his late friend (and associate teacher at the then newly formed California Institute of Arts) James Tenney
. Recorded at CalArts on December 6, the album is only available as a digital download.
Samadhisound released a podcast of Harold Budd in conversation with Akira Rabelais
in April 2007. In this (Samadhisound Podcast #2), Harold said although he had believed at the time of recording Avalon Sutra that it would be his last album, he no longer felt that way. "It was a time in my life when things weren't just falling together for me, and I thought that I was just going to let it all slide ... and I was sincere about it but if I had been more conscious of my real feelings and had explored my inner sanctum more I would've seen that it was a preposterous thing to do ... I was dreadfully lonely; I was living alone in the desert and had been for too long, really, and I felt that isolation very severely after a while, and it's probably a version of self-pity, I'm sorry to say, to have publicly said something like that, but there it is, I said it, turns out I wasn't telling the truth - I didn't know it at the time."
Darla Records
released two CDs by Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd in June 2007, After the Night Falls
and Before the Day Breaks
. Recorded in Spring 2006, each features nine tracks with linked titles, e.g. "How Distant Your Heart"/"How Close Your Soul" and "I Returned Her Glance"/"And Then I Turned Away".
In October 2008, a collaboration with Clive Wright entitled Song for Lost Blossoms was released by Darla Records. It includes recordings that were done live and in-studio at different locations, including both artists' homes. The album features some of their work done together between 2004 and 2006. A second collaborative effort with Wright, Candylion followed in 2009, again on Darla Records.
It was announced that Harold Budd will appear as one of the featured composer/performers at San Francisco's Other Minds
festival in March, 2012.
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
/avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
. Born in Los Angeles, he was raised in the Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
, and was inspired at an early age by the humming tone caused by wind blown across telephone wires.
Education and academic career
Budd's career as a composer began in 1962. In the following years, he gained a notable reputation in the local avant-garde community. In 1966 he graduated from the University of Southern CaliforniaUniversity of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
(having studied under Ingolf Dahl
Ingolf Dahl
Ingolf Dahl was a German-born American composer, pianist, conductor, and educator.-Biography:Born in Hamburg, Germany to a German father and a Swedish mother, his birth name was Walter Ingolf Marcus. He studied with Philipp Jarnach at the Hochschule für Musik Köln...
) with a degree in musical composition. As he progressed, his compositions became increasingly minimal
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
. Among his more experimental works were two drone music
Drone music
Drone music is a minimalist musical style that emphasizes the use of sustained or repeated sounds, notes, or tone-clusters – called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmonic variations throughout each piece compared to other musics...
pieces, "Coeur d'Orr" and "The Oak of the Golden Dreams".
After composing a long-form gong
Gong
A gong is an East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet....
solo titled "Lirio", he felt he had reached the limits of his experiments in minimalism and the avant-garde. He retired temporarily from composition in 1970 and began a teaching career at the California Institute of the Arts
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, is located in Valencia, in Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the United States created specifically for students of both the visual and the...
.
"The road from my first colored graph piece in 1962 to my renunciation of composing in 1970 to my resurfacing as a composer in 1972 was a process of trying out an idea and when it was obviously successful abandoning it. The early graph piece was followed by the Rothko orchestra work, the pieces for Source Magazine, the Feldman
Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...
-derived chamber works, the pieces typed out or written in longhand, the out-and-out conceptual works among other things, and the model drone works (which include the sax and organ "Coeur d'Orr" and "The Oak of the Golden Dreams", the latter based on the Bali
Bali
Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...
nese "Slendro
Slendro
Slendro is a pentatonic scale, one of the two most common scales used in Indonesian gamelan music, the other being pélog.-Tuning:...
" scale which scale I used again 18 years later on "The Real Dream of Sails").
"In 1970 with the "Candy-Apple Revision" (unspecified D-flat major) and "Lirio" (solo gong "for a long duration") I realized I had minimalized myself out of a career. It had taken ten years to reduce my language to zero but I loved the process of seeing it occur and not knowing when the end would come. By then I had opted out of avant-garde music generally; it seemed self-congratulatory and risk-free and my solution as to what to do next was to do nothing, to stop completely."
"I resurfaced as an artist in 1972 with "Madrigals of the Rose Angel", the first of what would be a cycle of works under the collective title The Pavilion of Dreams
The Pavilion of Dreams
- Track listing :# "Bismillahi 'Rrahman 'Rrahim" – 18:23# "Two Songs: 1. Let Us Go into the House of the Lord / 2. Butterfly Sunday" – 6:19# "Madrigals of the Rose Angel: 1. Rosetti Stone / 2...
. Madrigals refused to accommodate or even acknowledge any issues in new music. The entire aesthetic was an existential prettiness; not the Platonic
Platonic
Plato's influence on Western culture was so profound that several different concepts are linked by being called "platonic" or Platonist, for accepting some assumptions of Platonism, but which do not imply acceptance of that philosophy as a whole....
"to Kalon", but simply pretty: mindless, shallow and utterly devastating. Female chorus, harp and percussion seemed like a beautiful start. Its first performance was at a Franciscan church in California conducted by Daniel Lentz
Daniel Lentz
Daniel Lentz , Latrobe, Pennsylvania, is an electronic Western classical-music composer.Daniel Lentz achieved much fame as a musician while quite young—when he was still a student at Brandeis University he was awarded a fellowship in composition at Tanglewood in the summer of 1966...
."
Composer and recording artist
Two years later, while still retaining his teaching career, he resurfaced as a composer. Spanning from 1972-1975 he created four individual works under the collective title "The Pavilion of Dreams". The style of these works was an unusual blend of popular jazz and the avant-garde. In 1976 he resigned from the institute and began recording his new compositions, produced by British ambient pioneer Brian EnoBrian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
. Two years later, Harold Budd's debut album The Pavilion of Dreams was released.
Since then he has developed a style of ambient music. His two collaborations with Brian Eno, The Plateaux of Mirror
The Plateaux of Mirror
Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror is a 1980 album by ambient musicians Harold Budd and Brian Eno. This is the second installment of Eno's Ambient series which began in 1978 with Music for Airports, identifiable by its similar cover art which looks like it depicts rural terrain on a...
and The Pearl
The Pearl (album)
The Pearl is an LP by ambient musicians Harold Budd and Brian Eno, which was released in 1984. This album is similar to Budd and Eno’s previous collaboration Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror, consisting mostly of subtly treated piano textures, but this time with more pronounced electronic...
, established his trademark atmospheric piano style. On Lovely Thunder
Lovely Thunder
Lovely Thunder is an LP composed and performed by Harold Budd. The vinyl release did not include "Valse Pour le Fin du Temps".- Track listing :# "The Gunfighter" – 3:18# "Sandtreader" – 5:33# "Ice Floes in Eden" – 3:28# "Olancha Farewell" – 2:18...
he introduced subtle electronic textures. His thematic 2000 release The Room
The Room (album)
The Room is an album composed and performed by Harold Budd.- Track listing :# "The Room of Ancillary Dreams" – 6:08# "The Room of Oracles" – 4:46# "The Room of Stairs" – 5:21# "The Room of Corners" – 5:05# "The Room Alight" – 4:41...
saw a return to a more minimalist approach. In 2003, Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...
, the renowned producer of U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
and Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, and occasional collaborator of Brian Eno, recorded an impromptu performance of Harold playing the piano in his Los Angeles living room, unaware, and thus realized the album La Bella Vista.
His album Avalon Sutra
Avalon Sutra / As Long as I Can Hold My Breath
Avalon Sutra / As Long As I Can Hold My Breath is a double album by Harold Budd which, at the time of its release in 2005, was reported to be his final musical work. However, both Music for 'Fragments from the Inside and Mysterious Skin - Music from the Film, a collaboration with Robin Guthrie,...
from 2004 was billed as "Harold Budd's Last Recorded Work" by the record label Samadhi Sound
Samadhi Sound
Samadhi Sound is an independent record label founded by singer and musician David Sylvian after his departure from Virgin Records in the late nineties....
. Their press release continued: "Avalon Sutra brings to a conclusion thirty years of sustained musical activity. Asked for his reasons, Budd says only that he feels that he has said what he has to say. With characteristic humility, he concludes, "I don’t mind disappearing!"
A special celebration concert featuring Budd and guest-starring many of the musicians he had worked with throughout his career was presented at Brighton Dome
Brighton Dome
The Brighton Dome is an arts venue in Brighton, England that contains the Concert Hall, Corn Exchange and the Pavilion Theatre. All three venues are linked to the rest of the Royal Pavilion Estate by an underground tunnel to the Royal Pavilion in Pavilion Gardens and through shared corridors to...
in May 2005, also billed as being Budd's last public performance.
In spite of this, Budd's soundtrack to the film Mysterious Skin
Mysterious Skin - Music from the Film
Mysterious Skin – Music from the Film is an album of music composed and performed by Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd for the film Mysterious Skin...
(a collaboration with Robin Guthrie
Robin Guthrie
Robin Guthrie is a musician best known as co-founder of the Cocteau Twins. During his career Guthrie has played guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums and other musical instruments, in addition to programming, sampling and sound processing...
) and Music for 'Fragments from the Inside'
Music for 'Fragments from the Inside'
Music for 'Fragments from the Inside' is an album consisting of music composed and performed by Harold Budd and Eraldo Bernocchi for an installation at the Palazzo Delle Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea in Italy. The exhibit was created by poet Mara Bressi and videographer Patulia Mattioli,...
(with Eraldo Bernocchi
Eraldo Bernocchi
Eraldo Bernocchi is an Italian musician, producer and sound designer.-History:Bernocchi's musical career started around 1977 at the age of 14, when Eraldo started playing guitar with independent punk bands. In short order though, he found that he felt the medium was too limited and he started...
) were both released in 2005.
David Sylvian
David Sylvian
David Sylvian is an English singer-songwriter and musician who came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead vocalist and main songwriter in the group Japan...
's independent record label Samadhisound released Perhaps in February 2007, a live recording of Budd's improvised performance in tribute to his late friend (and associate teacher at the then newly formed California Institute of Arts) James Tenney
James Tenney
James Tenney was an American composer and influential music theorist.-Biography:Tenney was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and grew up in Arizona and Colorado. He attended the University of Denver, the Juilliard School of Music, Bennington College and the University of Illinois...
. Recorded at CalArts on December 6, the album is only available as a digital download.
Samadhisound released a podcast of Harold Budd in conversation with Akira Rabelais
Akira Rabelais
Akira Rabelais, Los Angeles-based composer and author.Akira is the author of ‘Argeïphontes Lyre’, a software filtering application based on recombination and morphologies. He has collaborated with various musicians, including Björk, David Sylvian, Harold Budd, Nobukazu Takemura, Stephan Mathieu and...
in April 2007. In this (Samadhisound Podcast #2), Harold said although he had believed at the time of recording Avalon Sutra that it would be his last album, he no longer felt that way. "It was a time in my life when things weren't just falling together for me, and I thought that I was just going to let it all slide ... and I was sincere about it but if I had been more conscious of my real feelings and had explored my inner sanctum more I would've seen that it was a preposterous thing to do ... I was dreadfully lonely; I was living alone in the desert and had been for too long, really, and I felt that isolation very severely after a while, and it's probably a version of self-pity, I'm sorry to say, to have publicly said something like that, but there it is, I said it, turns out I wasn't telling the truth - I didn't know it at the time."
Darla Records
Darla Records
Darla Records is an independent record label founded by James Agren while he was in New York. Darla Record's first release was a 7-inch by Grifters, an indie rock/lo-fi band from Memphis.- Background :...
released two CDs by Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd in June 2007, After the Night Falls
After The Night Falls
After The Night Falls is a 2007 collaborative LP from Robin Guthrie, formerly of the Cocteau Twins and Ambient artist, Harold Budd. It was released, as a matched CD, on the same day as Before the Day Breaks, also by Guthrie and Budd.- Track listing :...
and Before the Day Breaks
Before The Day Breaks
Before the Day Breaks is a 2007 collaborative LP from Robin Guthrie, formerly of the Cocteau Twins and Ambient artist, Harold Budd. It was released, as a matched CD, on the same day as After the Night Falls, also by Guthrie and Budd.- Track listing :...
. Recorded in Spring 2006, each features nine tracks with linked titles, e.g. "How Distant Your Heart"/"How Close Your Soul" and "I Returned Her Glance"/"And Then I Turned Away".
In October 2008, a collaboration with Clive Wright entitled Song for Lost Blossoms was released by Darla Records. It includes recordings that were done live and in-studio at different locations, including both artists' homes. The album features some of their work done together between 2004 and 2006. A second collaborative effort with Wright, Candylion followed in 2009, again on Darla Records.
It was announced that Harold Budd will appear as one of the featured composer/performers at San Francisco's Other Minds
Other Minds
Other Minds is a San Francisco based private 501 not-for-profit organization, founded in 1992 by Charles Amirkhanian and Jim Newman...
festival in March, 2012.
Discography
- 1970 The Oak of the Golden Dreams / Coeur D'Orr (with works by Richard MaxfieldRichard MaxfieldRichard Maxfield was a composer of instrumental, electro-acoustic, and electronic music.Born in Seattle, he most likely taught the first University-level course in electronic music in America at the New School for Social Research...
) (New World RecordsNew World RecordsNew World Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in American music. The label was established in 1975 through a Rockefeller Foundation grant to produce a 100 disc anthology covering 200 years of American music....
) - 1978 The Pavilion of DreamsThe Pavilion of Dreams- Track listing :# "Bismillahi 'Rrahman 'Rrahim" – 18:23# "Two Songs: 1. Let Us Go into the House of the Lord / 2. Butterfly Sunday" – 6:19# "Madrigals of the Rose Angel: 1. Rosetti Stone / 2...
(Editions EGE.G. RecordsE.G. Records was a UK-based artist management company and independent record label, mostly active during the 1970s and 1980s. The initials stand for its founders, David Enthoven and John Gaydon. The pair signed on as managers of King Crimson in early 1969, during the formative stage of the band and...
) - 1980 The Plateaux of MirrorThe Plateaux of MirrorAmbient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror is a 1980 album by ambient musicians Harold Budd and Brian Eno. This is the second installment of Eno's Ambient series which began in 1978 with Music for Airports, identifiable by its similar cover art which looks like it depicts rural terrain on a...
(with Brian EnoBrian EnoBrian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
) (Editions EG) - 1981 The Serpent (in Quicksilver) (EP) (Cantil) (also released by Les Disques Du Crepuscule, Belgium, in 1982)
- 1984 Abandoned Cities (Cantil) (issued on CD with The Serpent (In Quicksilver) by Opal Records in 1989 and All Saints RecordsAll Saints RecordsAll Saints Records is a British independent record label. It was established in 1991 by Dominic Norman-Taylor. They have published Ambient music from the likes of Brian Eno or Biosphere.-History:...
in 2005) - 1984 The PearlThe Pearl (album)The Pearl is an LP by ambient musicians Harold Budd and Brian Eno, which was released in 1984. This album is similar to Budd and Eno’s previous collaboration Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror, consisting mostly of subtly treated piano textures, but this time with more pronounced electronic...
(with Brian Eno) (Editions EG) - 1986 Lovely ThunderLovely ThunderLovely Thunder is an LP composed and performed by Harold Budd. The vinyl release did not include "Valse Pour le Fin du Temps".- Track listing :# "The Gunfighter" – 3:18# "Sandtreader" – 5:33# "Ice Floes in Eden" – 3:28# "Olancha Farewell" – 2:18...
(Editions EG) - 1986 The Moon and the MelodiesThe Moon and the MelodiesThe Moon and the Melodies is the product of a one-off collaboration between the Scottish group Cocteau Twins and the American composer Harold Budd....
(with Simon Raymonde, Robin GuthrieRobin GuthrieRobin Guthrie is a musician best known as co-founder of the Cocteau Twins. During his career Guthrie has played guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums and other musical instruments, in addition to programming, sampling and sound processing...
and Elizabeth FraserElizabeth FraserElizabeth Davidson Fraser is a Scottish singer best known as the vocalist for the pioneer alternative rock group Cocteau Twins...
) (4AD4AD4AD is a British independent record label that was started in 1979 by Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent, funded by Beggars Banquet Records, and is still active today...
) - 1987 Myths 3: La Nouvelle Sérenité (with Gavin BryarsGavin BryarsRichard Gavin Bryars is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in, a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, experimental music, avant-garde and neoclassicism.-Early life and career:Born in Goole, East...
& Jon HassellJon HassellJon Hassell is an American trumpet player and composer. He is known for his influence in the world music scene and his unusual electronic manipulation of the trumpet sound.-Life and career:...
) (Sub RosaSub Rosa (label)Sub Rosa is a record label based in Brussels. The label was established at the end of the ‘80s, and expanded its catalogue in the mid-‘90s through the release of electronic music. Directed by Guy Marc Hinant and Frédéric Walheer, the label has released over 250 titles...
) - 1988 The White ArcadesThe White ArcadesThe White Arcades is an album performed by Harold Budd. The album was recorded at various locations, including the Palladium in Edinburgh and the Cocteau Twins Studio in London, and individual tracks were engineered by the Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie and by Brian Eno, the latter also adding his...
(Opal Records/Land Records) (reissued in 1992 by All Saints Records) - 1991 By the Dawn's Early LightBy the Dawn's Early LightBy the Dawn's Early Light is an album by composer Harold Budd. It was first released in 1991 by the Warner Bros. and Wea record labels, and subsequently re-released with new cover art in 2006 by All Saints Records...
(with Bill NelsonBill Nelson (musician)Bill Nelson is an English guitarist, songwriter, producer, painter and experimental musician...
) (Opal Records/Land Records) (reissued in 1996 by All Saints Records) - 1992 Music for 3 PianosMusic for 3 PianosMusic for 3 Pianos is an album by Harold Budd, Ruben Garcia, and Daniel Lentz.- Track listing :# "Pulse Pause Repeat" – 4:16# "La Muchacha De Los Suenos Dorados" – 4:38# "Iris" – 2:37# "Somos Tres" – 2:33# "The Messenger" – 3:06...
(with Daniel LentzDaniel LentzDaniel Lentz , Latrobe, Pennsylvania, is an electronic Western classical-music composer.Daniel Lentz achieved much fame as a musician while quite young—when he was still a student at Brandeis University he was awarded a fellowship in composition at Tanglewood in the summer of 1966...
& Ruben GarciaRuben GarciaRuben Garcia is an American NASCAR racer from South El Monte, California. He started out in the Winston West Series. He is best remembered for hitting the wall at the Riverside International Raceway on June 12, 1988, when he came off turn 9 and hit the wall near the grandstands...
) (All Saints Records) - 1994 She Is a Phantom (New Albion)
- 1994 Through the HillThrough the HillThrough the Hill is an album composed and performed by Andy Partridge and Harold Budd.- Track listing :*Prelude*GeographyThrough the Hill is an album composed and performed by Andy Partridge and Harold Budd....
(with Andy PartridgeAndy PartridgeAndrew John "Andy" Partridge is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He has been known as Sir John Johns and Melchior and rose to fame as a founding member, guitarist and chief songwriter of the pop/new wave band, XTC. He lives in Swindon, Wiltshire, where he was raised.Partridge also...
) (All Saints Records) - 1995 Glyph (with Hector ZazouHector ZazouHector Zazou was a prolific French composer and record producer who worked with, produced, and collaborated with an international array of recording artists...
) (Made To Measure) - 1996 Glyph Remixes (12" LP, with Hector Zazou) (SSR)
- 1996 Walk Into My Voice: American Beat Poetry (with Daniel Lentz & Jessica Karraker)
- 1996 LuxaLuxaLuxa is an album composed and performed by Harold Budd.- Track listing :*Butterflies with TitsLuxa is an album composed and performed by Harold Budd.- Track listing :*Butterflies with Tits...
(All Saints Records) - 1998 Fenceless Night: Selections for Cinema 1980-1998 (compilation, promotional only) (PolygramPolyGramPolyGram was the name of the major label recording company started by Philips from as a holding company for its music interests in 1945. In 1999 it was sold to Seagram and merged into Universal Music Group.-Hollandsche Decca Distributie , 1929-1950:...
) - 2000 The RoomThe Room (album)The Room is an album composed and performed by Harold Budd.- Track listing :# "The Room of Ancillary Dreams" – 6:08# "The Room of Oracles" – 4:46# "The Room of Stairs" – 5:21# "The Room of Corners" – 5:05# "The Room Alight" – 4:41...
(AtlanticAtlantic RecordsAtlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
) - 2002 Three White Roses and a Budd (CD Single, with Fila BrazilliaFila BrazilliaFila Brazillia was an electronica collaboration from Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire in North-East England. Formed in 1990 by Steve Cobby and David McSherry...
and Bill Nelson) (Twentythree RecordsTwentythree RecordsTwentythree Records is a record label based in Yorkshire, England. The label was founded by Steve Cobby, David McSherry, and Sim Lister—who are regarded as significant names in the development of the electronica genre in the United Kingdom....
) - 2002 Agua (live at the Lanzarote Music Festival, December 1989) (La Cooka Ratcha)
- 2002 Jah Wobble's Solaris - Live In Concert (with Jah WobbleJah WobbleJah Wobble is an English bass guitarist, singer, poet and composer. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but left the band after two albums...
, Graham HaynesGraham HaynesGraham Haynes is an American cornetist, trumpeter and composer, the son of jazz drummer Roy Haynes....
, Jaki LiebezeitJaki LiebezeitJaki Liebezeit is a drummer probably best known as a founding member of Can who has been called "one of the few drummers to convincingly meld the funky and the cerebral"....
& Bill LaswellBill LaswellBill Laswell is an American bassist, producer and record label owner....
) (30 Hertz Records) - 2003 La Bella Vista (Shout Factory)
- 2003 Translucence/Drift MusicTranslucence/Drift MusicTranslucence/Drift Music is a double studio LP by American ambient musician Harold Budd and English musician and graphic artist John Foxx, which was released in August 2003. Budd and Foxx had long been engaged by the other's work, eventually working together in 1996...
(with John FoxxJohn FoxxJohn Foxx is an English singer, artist, photographer and teacher. He was the original lead singer of the band Ultravox before being replaced by Midge Ure, when he left to embark on a solo career in 1979...
) (Edsel) - 2004 Avalon Sutra / As Long as I Can Hold My BreathAvalon Sutra / As Long as I Can Hold My BreathAvalon Sutra / As Long As I Can Hold My Breath is a double album by Harold Budd which, at the time of its release in 2005, was reported to be his final musical work. However, both Music for 'Fragments from the Inside and Mysterious Skin - Music from the Film, a collaboration with Robin Guthrie,...
(Samadhi SoundSamadhi SoundSamadhi Sound is an independent record label founded by singer and musician David Sylvian after his departure from Virgin Records in the late nineties....
) - 2005 Music for 'Fragments from the Inside'Music for 'Fragments from the Inside'Music for 'Fragments from the Inside' is an album consisting of music composed and performed by Harold Budd and Eraldo Bernocchi for an installation at the Palazzo Delle Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea in Italy. The exhibit was created by poet Mara Bressi and videographer Patulia Mattioli,...
(with Eraldo BernocchiEraldo BernocchiEraldo Bernocchi is an Italian musician, producer and sound designer.-History:Bernocchi's musical career started around 1977 at the age of 14, when Eraldo started playing guitar with independent punk bands. In short order though, he found that he felt the medium was too limited and he started...
) (Sub Rosa) - 2005 Mysterious Skin - Music from the FilmMysterious Skin - Music from the FilmMysterious Skin – Music from the Film is an album of music composed and performed by Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd for the film Mysterious Skin...
(with Robin Guthrie) (Commotion) - 2007 Perhaps (Samadhisound)
- 2007 After the Night FallsAfter The Night FallsAfter The Night Falls is a 2007 collaborative LP from Robin Guthrie, formerly of the Cocteau Twins and Ambient artist, Harold Budd. It was released, as a matched CD, on the same day as Before the Day Breaks, also by Guthrie and Budd.- Track listing :...
(with Robin Guthrie) (Darla RecordsDarla RecordsDarla Records is an independent record label founded by James Agren while he was in New York. Darla Record's first release was a 7-inch by Grifters, an indie rock/lo-fi band from Memphis.- Background :...
) - 2007 Before the Day BreaksBefore The Day BreaksBefore the Day Breaks is a 2007 collaborative LP from Robin Guthrie, formerly of the Cocteau Twins and Ambient artist, Harold Budd. It was released, as a matched CD, on the same day as After the Night Falls, also by Guthrie and Budd.- Track listing :...
(with Robin Guthrie) (Darla Records) - 2008 A Song for Lost Blossoms (with Clive Wright) (Darla Records)
- 2009 Candylion (with Clive Wright) (Darla Records)
- 2009 Cedars of Lebanon (with U2U2U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
) (Interscope) - 2010 Little Windows (with Clive Wright) (Darla Records)
- 2011 Bordeaux (with Robin GuthrieRobin GuthrieRobin Guthrie is a musician best known as co-founder of the Cocteau Twins. During his career Guthrie has played guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums and other musical instruments, in addition to programming, sampling and sound processing...
) (Darla Records) - 2011 NighthawksNighthawksNighthawks is a 1942 painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people sitting in a downtown diner late at night. It is considered Hopper's most famous painting, as well as one of the most recognizable in American art...
(with John Foxx and Ruben Garcia) - 2011 In The Mist (Darla Records)
- 2011 Winter Garden (with Eraldo BernocchiEraldo BernocchiEraldo Bernocchi is an Italian musician, producer and sound designer.-History:Bernocchi's musical career started around 1977 at the age of 14, when Eraldo started playing guitar with independent punk bands. In short order though, he found that he felt the medium was too limited and he started...
and Robin GuthrieRobin GuthrieRobin Guthrie is a musician best known as co-founder of the Cocteau Twins. During his career Guthrie has played guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums and other musical instruments, in addition to programming, sampling and sound processing...
) (Rare Noise Records)
- Also appears on the following Various Artist cd compilations: Music for Films IIIMusic for Films IIIMusic for Films III is the third entry in Brian Eno's "Music for Films" series. It features tracks by Brian Eno, Roger Eno, Michael Brook, and Harold Budd among others....
(1988 Opal/Land; reissued 1992, All Saints), Compounds and Elements (2006, All Saints), Unlimited Ambient (1997) and Gene BowenGene BowenGene Bowen, also known as Eugene Bowen , is a composer, guitarist, pedal steel guitarist, sound designer and vocalist. He has collaborated with and appears on recordings by a number of new music composers, including Harold Budd and Daniel Lentz....
's Bourgeois Magnetic (Cantil 1981 /issued on CD by AmorfonAmorfonAmorfon is a Japanese experimental music record label, located in Tokyo. Founded in 2004 by Yoshio Machida. Amorfon releases experimental and avant-garde music from all genres - from Electronica to World music.-Amorfon Releases:...
2007).
Ephemera
- The indie rock band RothkoRothko (band)Rothko were a London-based instrumental ambient group. The group mainly used bass guitars and keyboards to create their soundscapes. They derived their name from the painter Mark Rothko...
has a song titled "Harold Budd" on their album In the Pulse of An Artery (which uses a sample from Budd's "Boy About 10" from his album By the Dawn's Early LightBy the Dawn's Early LightBy the Dawn's Early Light is an album by composer Harold Budd. It was first released in 1991 by the Warner Bros. and Wea record labels, and subsequently re-released with new cover art in 2006 by All Saints Records...
.) - Harold Budd and Eugene Bowen contributed the track "Wonder's Edge" to the Cold Blue label compilation.
- The Harold Budd track "Balthus Bemused By Colour" from his album The White Arcades is included as part of the 70 Minutes of Madness DJ mix by ColdcutColdcutColdcut are an English dance music duo, comprising Matt Black and Jonathan More. Their signature style is electronic dance music, featuring cut up samples of hip hop, breaks, jazz, spoken word and various other types of music, as well as video and multimedia.-1980s:In 1986, computer programmer Matt...
. - On saxophonist Marion BrownMarion BrownMarion Brown was a jazz alto saxophonist and ethnomusicologist. He is most well known as a member of the 1960s avant-garde jazz scene in New York City, playing alongside musicians such as John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, and John Tchicai...
's 1975 album Vista, Harold Budd plays celeste and gong on the track Bismillahi 'Rrahmani 'Rrahim, a shorter version of the same composition on Budd's 1978 album The Pavilion of DreamsThe Pavilion of Dreams- Track listing :# "Bismillahi 'Rrahman 'Rrahim" – 18:23# "Two Songs: 1. Let Us Go into the House of the Lord / 2. Butterfly Sunday" – 6:19# "Madrigals of the Rose Angel: 1. Rosetti Stone / 2...
(which also includes Marion BrownMarion BrownMarion Brown was a jazz alto saxophonist and ethnomusicologist. He is most well known as a member of the 1960s avant-garde jazz scene in New York City, playing alongside musicians such as John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, and John Tchicai...
as saxophone soloist). - In 1961, while in the military, Harold Budd briefly played drums in an Army band with legendary avant-garde saxophonist Albert AylerAlbert AylerAlbert Ayler was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer.Ayler was among the most primal of the free jazz musicians of the 1960s; critic John Litweiler wrote that "never before or since has there been such naked aggression in jazz" He possessed a deep blistering tone—achieved...
. - The track "Subtext" from Budd's album 'Translucence' with John Foxx features in the film 'Inside I'm Dancing' (Momentum Pictures, June 2004)
External links
- New Albion Records Harold Budd page
- Samadhisound Harold Budd page
- Ambience for the Masses Harold Budd page
- Harold Budd: American Vision article from Sound On Sound magazine
- soundNET Concert Archives A rare live performance of works by Harold Budd (September 18, 2004) [streaming Quicktime audio]
- Somnambule Review of Harold Budd "Farewell Concert" at Brighton Dome (May 21, 2005)
- Harold Budd: Harold in May article from The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
(May 8, 2005) - Harold Budd Home page