Recorded reside in Berlin in 1975 however not launched till 1982, Descending Moonshine Dervishes represents a continuation of the cadenza-like improvisations Riley captured on Persian Surgical procedure Dervishes, recorded between 1971 and 1972 in Los Angeles and Paris. The titles of each albums, with their reference to Sufism’s whirling worshippers, provide a way of the spinning motions of the music, a blur of arpeggiated figures and knotty patterns unfold throughout the left and proper arms. On each albums, he used a Yamaha YC 45D electrical organ whose sign was routed into a posh delay chain, and in each circumstances, the organ was modified to play in simply intonation, a tuning system whose vibrant, wide-open intervals sound faintly alien to listeners accustomed to Western music’s equal temperament.
Making an attempt to tease out particular variations between Descending Moonshine Dervishes and Persian Surgical procedure Dervishes is a bit bit like evaluating a single stretch of river in numerous climate circumstances. However the place the keyboard within the 1971-72 concert events is heat and radiant, with an nearly churchly solid, Descending Moonshine Dervishes strikes a extra unsettling be aware, brittle and sometimes buzzing with overtones. Riley’s chords really feel subtly distorted, bent out of form. Listening to the best way sure chords appear to drag away from the basis be aware, I think about magnetic fields at work. In locations, the organ’s reed-like tone sounds nearly medieval, conjuring photographs of felt-hatted pipers in cobblestoned city squares, regardless that Riley’s repertoire of polyrhythms and melodic figures are rooted within the ragas that he was learning in India with the classical singer Pandit Pran Nath.
“It’s not rocket science,” Riley quipped of his method. However even when you realize the nuts and bolts of how he made the music, it’s troublesome to parse the underlying mechanics. You may have the ability to pinpoint the slap-back delay, however any try and decipher which hand is enjoying what, or which phrases are an impact of the tape versus being performed in actual time, is futile. The peculiarities of the Yamaha organ, with its two manuals, a number of registers, and tone-control levers, lend to shape-shifting timbres. Riley is a remarkably dexterous participant even with out the usage of results; listening to him right here, geared up with what for the time was a novel and high-tech setup, it’s arduous to fathom that simply two arms are chargeable for every part that comes streaming from the audio system, with no overdubs.
Over the album’s 51-minute runtime, the music is consistently evolving. Gradual, contemplative melodies morph imperceptibly into icy waterfalls of trebly tones and again into bassy dirges. Sweetly consonant harmonies abruptly curdle, throwing off bitter, complicated dissonance. Tinkling chimes recommend angelic symphonies. Sometimes, a phased buzz anticipates the tubular glow of early Oneohtrix Level By no means. But all these adjustments occur completely seamlessly, and with one thing approaching bliss. Round this time, Riley was performing all-night concert events, giving him an much more ample canvas to experiment together with his psychedelically enveloping concepts. Descending Moonshine Dervishes likewise seems like a snapshot of a for much longer continuum, a quick snippet of infinity rendered in essentially the most rapturous phrases. One of many central motifs, a rising and falling four-note determine, is sort of childlike; I think about a five-year-old’s singsong question—“Are we there but?”—repeated time and again because the panorama flies by the backseat home windows in a blur. The pleasure, in fact, is within the journey; the enjoyment of Riley’s piece is in deferring the ultimate vacation spot so long as doable.
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