Harold Budd
La Bella Vista
new album from master ambient composer and Eno collaborator, available from High Coin
Minimalist composer Harold Budd is perhaps best known for his collaborations with Brian Eno, Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins, and Andy Partridge of XTC. Over the span of his music career, which began at age 36 when he earned a degree in Musical Composition from the University of Southern California, he released over 13 albums and appeared on many more. Budd is unique as an avant-garde pianist and composer who has earned both critical respect and commercial success.
Harold Budd was born May 24, 1936 in Los Angeles but grew up in the Mojave Desert town of Victorville, California. His earliest "musical" influences came from listening to the buzz of telephone wires near his home. Married with children by the time he went to University as a mature student, Budd's irrepressible talent quickly earned him the respect of his peers and by the late '60s he was premiering such works as The Candy-Apple Revision and Unspecified D-Flat Major Chord and Lirio in the local area. In 1970 he accepted a teaching position at the California Institute of Arts but continued to compose, writing Madrigals of the Rose Angel in 1972. It was in 1976, after leaving the Institute, that Budd gained a recording contract with the Eno-affiliated EG Records. His debut album was The Pavilion of Dreams, released in 1978. By 1980 he'd begin collaborating with Eno, with the release of the landmark ambient project, Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirrors. Budd worked with Eno again on 1984's The Pearl which also led to a contract with Eno's Opal Records resulting in his most celebrated album, The White Arcades, recorded in Edinburgh with Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie. After 1991's By the Dawn's Early Light, Budd and Opal parted ways. Two albums followed for Gyroscope: Music for Three Pianos (with Ruben Garcia and Daniel Lentz) and the lauded Through the Hill, a collaboration with Andy Partridge of XTC. The mid- '90s saw Budd record albums for New Albion and All Saints, before signing to Atlantic for the release of Room in 2000. In 2004, the now 68 year old Budd decided to retire and what he thought was to be his final album, Avalon Sutra/As Long as I Can See My Breath, appeared on David Sylvian's Samhadi Sound Imprint as a double-disc release.
2006's La Bella Vista, an album that was recorded at impromptu gatherings of friends at the home of Grammy-winning producer Daniel Lanois, who last produced U2's All That You Can’t Leave Behind. At the first of these session, Budd was completely unaware that the tape was rolling, affording an entirely spontaneous and "of the moment" document. On playing a vintage Steinway at Lanois' house at the initial session Budd proclaimed it "one of the most gorgeous pianos I have ever played. I played for 15 people, most of whom I had met that night for the first time." The house itself, a 1920s Italianate villa, provided the album's title.
Tracklisting:
Bell Tower
Campanile
The Rose
Stones
Her Face
Children's Games Beyond Our Reach
The Avenue
Bird Charmer
Other Flowers
Il Leopardo Della Nevi
catalogue number: SABRECD2005; barcode: 823566039723
available to buy from play.com and all good record stores.