Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd
Posted on July 13, 2007
On the recommendation of a reader, I recently picked up two new records by Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd, Before The Day Breaks and After The Night Falls. I’m familiar with Budd’s work, specifically his collaboration with Brian Eno on Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror. I’ve also got Budd’s The White Arcades. I like both of those records, and had heard good things about Budd’s collaboration with Guthrie in the past, so I figured these would be right up my alley.
These two records have a similarity about them. And by that, I mean they sound like Harold Budd. Big, roomy, reverby sounding keys and guitar, but all muted and flattened a bit to sound like you’re listening to something just off in the distance. Or, maybe, what it would be like to listen to another record under water.
The two records are apparently meant each meant to be a counterpoint to the other, and you can see this in the titles of the tracks, i.e. track 1 on Before The Day Breaks is “How Close Your Soul” while track 1 on After The Night Falls is “How Distant Your Heart.” I created a playlist that positions the corresponding tracks from the two records together and you can hear the kind of call and response going on.
These are two very nice records, and if you have any interest in Budd’s work, or if you like his previous work, which many consider to be prototypically “ambient,” then you’d be wise to have a listen to these records.