#634 Various Artists - Rework: Philip Glass Remixed

Do you like repetition? I said, do you like repetition? I can't hear you!

You better, because its Glass's stock in trade and here his work is used as an outline for a variety of modern, mostly electronic, artists to play with. Fact is, that's about all I know about Glass and his role in this project, and I've never heard any of the originals of any of these songs, so I'm gonna have to take this at face value.

At face value, its all pretty darn good actually. Hypnotic, but interesting, the familiar artists sounding familiar but new through this lens. All things considered, most of this isn't all that indulgent, with reasonable song lengths and approaches to making music. There is surprisingly little that is unlistenable or boring given Glass's reputation for demanding patience.

This is perhaps because of the curation by Beck, perhaps the most straightforwardly pop-minded of the contributors found here. He also houses the main exception to the aforementioned restraint, resulting in a 20 minute, comparatively narrative track that is possibly the album's best.

Starting off with the click and rhythm and buzz of a city coming to life, the songs opens like sun rising through low clouds on a cold morning. The small details fall away and we're awed by monoliths of concrete and steel and before we know it we're on a train out of town, and then a train through the history of the city itself, maybe time itself, before coming to rest in a quiet reflective moment, maybe on a park bench. Maybe everything maybe nothing. This all nearly wordlessly, with Beck's voice echoing through space, a glorious, insane extension of his artiest moments, like the 3-part closer to The Information. I'm tempted to explain how this whole odyssey could be mapped onto Kubrick's 2001, but let's not get ridiculous. It's stitched together from 20 or so Glass tracks, so its hard to know who exactly to give credit to, but the result is something of a masterpiece.

The rest of the album is compelling enough, but there is nothing this narrative or groundbreaking, mostly serving to ride a single idea or groove in a more traditional style. The rest of the tracks are probably worth a three and a half or so, but the Beck track alone is easily enough for a bump to 4/5