Trains January 2017

Field Records welcomes Acronym for a new album, Malm, which follows many great ambient laced deep techno EPs and LPs on Semantica and Northern Electronics. The 10-track beatless affair pays homage to one of his lost friends who was torn between his dualistic nature. In a state of paranoia, stress and inner conflict, even brief moments of panic can be fatal for yourself and the people around you…

This late-'80s work finds the minimalist composer mixing acoustic and taped material to great effect. The disc's centerpiece is "Different Trains," a work that frames Reich's impressions of his boyhood train trips between his mother in Los Angeles and his father in New York; Reich also intersperses references to the much more harrowing train rides Jews were forced to take to Nazi concentration camps. Using the fine playing of the Kronos Quartet as a base, Reich layers the work with the taped train musings of his governess, a retired Pullman porter, and various Holocaust survivors – vintage train sounds from the '30s and '40s add to the riveting arrangement. And for some nice contrast, Reich recruits guitarist Pat Metheny to create a similarly momentous piece in "Electric Counterpoint" (Metheny plays live over a multi-tracked tape of ten guitars and two electric basses). Two fine works by Reich in his prime.