harold budd

Harold Budd is a Californian pianist who creates some of the most gorgeous music ever made.

He began composing in the 1960s, working on decidedly avant-garde music, but by the end of that decade his work had become ever more minimal and he was experimenting with drones. After his lengthy gong solo piece "Lirio", Budd felt that he'd painted himself into a corner and decided to retire from composition (he memorably described this as "I'd minimalised myself out of a career").

Taking up teaching Budd rediscovered his love of lyrical piano music. By 1972 he'd begun a cycle of works under the title "The Pavilion Of Dreams". Parts of this were based on resolutely old fashioned madrigals, as far from contemporary avant-garde music as could be imagined. Delighted by the innate prettiness of his new work Budd was content to move further in that direction, embracing the beauty of the music above all else. It somehow seems entirely fitting that the "Madrigals Of The Rose Angel", full of angelic female voices, harps and gentle percussion, received their debut performance in a church.  

By 1976 he'd stepped down from teaching and was recording his new compositions for Brian Eno's newly formed Obscure Records. Released in early 1978 The Pavilion Of Dreams contains four lengthy tracks, two new linked songs, the aforementioned Madrigals, a meditation for piano and (very quiet) chorus entitled "Juno" and perhaps the most impressive track in Budd's whole career, "Bismillahi 'Rrahman 'Rrahim". This is a calming, gorgeous and surprisingly emotional collaboration with jazz saxophonist Marion Brown, whose muted sax is backed by gentle vibes and distant piano flourishes. The 18 minute piece is probably the most relaxing piece of music I've ever heard. It is transfixingly beautiful and I could, quite genuinely, listen to this piece all day long.  

However, it was the more straightforwardly piano based "Juno" that really pointed the way forward. Budd's next albums were fully fledged collaborations as Budd's sparse but deeply atmospheric piano style was embellished by Brian Eno's equally sparse and atmospheric electronic backings. The Plateaux Of Mirror conjures up empty roads, wide open fields, frosty landscapes sparkling in the winter sun. Even without the stunningly evocative titles ("Wind In Lonely Fences", "Among Fields Of Crystal" etc) the music shivers in the snow and shimmers in the moonlight.

Mirror was followed by The Pearl which further refined the techniques used to create an even more delicate selection of music; at times the listener can scarcely breathe for fear of disturbing the ice covered spider webs of sound.

By the mid 1980's Budd was incorporating the fuller electronic textures of synths into his work. Occasionally this threatened to overbalance the always delicate piano work. Lovely though 1988's The White Arcades is, it's also perhaps too far from Budd's real strength of beauty through simplicity and thus the listener loses sight of Budd behind the layers of electronics.

1991's By The Dawn's Early Light found Budd collaborating with Bill Nelson who introduced subtle guitar textures. One of Budd's most overtly melancholy albums, many of the songs also feature a mournful violin, something which Budd had begun to develop on 1986's Lovely Thunder though with mixed results. Here however, the stark vistas of the Old West are conjured up as Budd draws on his childhood memories of the Mojave Desert. He would return to desert landscapes time and again in his work, and would physically move back to the edge of the Mojave during the 1990s. At the same time his love of old beat poetry found a home in a number of evocative poems recited by Budd in that dry old voice of his. They fit perfectly with the music on Early Light. A few years later and his collaboration with XTC's Andy Partridge was something of a continuation of this approach with another successful mix of minimalist guitar textures, piano and poetry.

Many of his subsequent records have been in conjunction with other artists. John Foxx played the Brian Eno role of electronics wizard on three stunning albums beginning with 2003's Translucence. Guitarist Clive Wright has recorded a series of gorgeous albums with Budd in recent years. And Robin Guthrie, the guitarist and sonic sculptor from Cocteau Twins has joined forces with Budd on a number of projects. Budd had first met Guthrie back in 1987 when they recorded The Moon And The Melodies with the rest of Cocteau Twins, but the recent work has included film soundtracks and a number of devastatingly lovely records including the linked pair from 2007 Before The Day Breaks and After The Night Falls.

Meanwhile Budd still finds time to release entirely solo records. The Room from 2000 created an album from a series of thematically linked variations of an old track from The White Arcades. 1996's Luxa successfully mixes electronics with acoustic piano to create Budd's most successful and accessible album in some years. Dripping with invention and appealingly upbeat melodies this was in many critics' top ten of the year. On a more sparse note, in 2003 Daniel Lanois surreptitiously set the tapes rolling without Budd realising as he improvised at the piano in his living room. The result was the delightful La Bella Vista - simple melodies, unencumbered by any production techniques, this was pure Harold Budd.  

A similarly improvised work was 2007's Perhaps, released only as a download via David Sylvian's Samhadi Sound label. The link with Sylvian had been made a couple of years before with the 2004 release of Avalon Sutra. This record, which mixed beautifully understated strings and woodwinds with some of Budd's most romantically lyrical piano work in years, was billed as Budd's last ever recording. When asked why, Budd simply replied that he felt he'd done enough and was quite happy to disappear back to the desert. There was a lull for perhaps a year, but since 2005 more than a dozen albums have been issued bearing his name. Far from disappearing into retirement, Harold Budd seems much busier than ever before.

He later relected on his spectacular failure to retire - "It was a time in my life when things weren't just falling together for me... I was sincere about it but if I had been more conscious of my real feelings I would've seen that it was a preposterous thing to do. I was living alone in the desert and had been for too long, really, 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."

Now in his mid 70's Harold Budd is still issuing an astonishing three or four records each year, and he shows no sign of stopping. His latest solo album In The Mist combines some of his sparsest piano work yet with some beautiful vignettes arranged for a string ensemble. In creating a totality of mood the silences between the tracks are as important as the music. Indeed at times the music seems to exist only at the very limits of human hearing. It's another record that has me holding my breath as I don't want even the slightest extraneous sound to disturb the fragility of the playing. 

There's a certain quality present in all of Budd's work - that of delicate beauty, infused with just a tinge of sadness. It makes you think of deserts, fields, long dusty roads, the Wild West, vast empty plains and solitary figures. His music conjures up feelings of things just remembered - people, events and especially places that exist on the edge of your memory. Memories that are dormant most of the time but are awakened, just a little, by Budd's evocative piano playing. No-one else plays like him, no-one else creates quite this sort of music.

I added up all the tracks on my iPod and I was a little surprised to discover that I have 24 hours worth of Budd's music. A whole day. I do occasionally wonder if I really need another Harold Budd album. After all doesn't one gentle piano abstraction sound much like another? Well, yes, sometimes they do. But when music is this lovely, and the outside world is in such a state, it seems churlish to turn down the opportunity of allowing a little more beauty and light and hope into your life. If only more people listened to Harold Budd's music, for even a few minutes, let alone a whole day, then the world might be a considerably calmer and happier place.