In 1964 Terry Riley composed In C, hailed as
one of the first minimalist compositions, comprising 53 short phrases of
music to be played consecutively by a collection of musicians in
any octave, at any speed, with any instruments. In performances,
each phrase is repeated as many times as the individual performer
wants, the only rule being that players must stay within two or
three phrases of each other. The piece ends when all players reach
the final 53rd phrase.
Riley's original recording was half an hour long, and
was released on vinyl in 1964 (it faded out on side A, and back in
for side B). In C is a perennial classic, recorded and
released every couple of years, and seemingly always being
performed somewhere in the world. Almost 50 years later
Portishead's Adrian Utley has recorded his own version that's over
an hour long, with a 19 strong orchestra of electric guitars (which
includes John Parish, Portishead bass player Jim Barr, members of
Thought Forms and others) backed up by four organs (played by
Charles Hazlewood) and a bass clarinet.
Utley's version is slower than the original, more
austere, and texturally it's very different due to the reduced
palette of instruments, recorded in just five mics. "I wanted ours
to be more linear, with all the same instruments," he says, audibly
excited. Utley originally performed In C two years ago at
St George's church in Bristol, and again in February this year,
this time recorded, mixed and overdubbed with organ (Riley's
original piece was double tracked, with everyone playing twice).
"Once you start playing [In C], you're off, that's it," he
says, "you've jumped off the top of the mountain and you're
floating down."
Utley still feels there's potential in the sound of
massed guitars, despite the enormous inroads made by Glenn Branca
and Rhys Chatham in the last few decades. Branca was the starting
point: "I have been doing this because of Glenn Branca," he says.
"John Parish [PJ Harvey's guitar player] played me Branca for the
first time, and I was completely blown away. Like it was something
I'd been waiting to hear for most of my life. I've always been
interested in the sonic possibilities of the guitar that are
outside traditional playing... so it was really exciting to me to
know that there's a future in that – an orchestral attitude towards
writing for it."
He talks about working with non-traditional tunings,
and playing with objects: "If you get 20 people hitting their
guitar with a piece of metal, or with a wooden stick," he says
"It's a phenomenal noise, and with them all retuned it's brilliant.
That's exciting to me."
But there's a doubt, certainly in my mind, around a
new recording of such a well worn composition: In C has
been recorded so many times before is there room, or requirement
for another? "I had to let that thought go," says Utley. "Although
I'm still worrying about it. It's the nature of the piece that
it'll be different every time you play it, and I could forever
worry that we hadn't done the new definitive version. But I'm happy
with it, conceptually and sonically, and with the performance...for
today anyway."
In C by Adrian Utley's Guitar Orchestra is
released on Geoff Barrow's Invada Records on 30
September.
