Harold Budd website!

[drone on]

Yes, you read that right.  15 years after the retirement announcement, His Royal Budd, definitely one of the gods of the ambient realm, is going online soon with his own site.  Can't wait to see this. 

[mgriffin]

He seems to be having a bit of a comeback.

[drone on]

Could be.  Although I don't think he really went anywhere in terms of popularity or sales, to come back from.  He's done a lot of projects the last 10 that's for sure.  I think it's amazing to see him still so active.  Art is life, as they say.

[drone on]

https://youtu.be/PJ4u5LoBtVc

Check out this great interview with Mr. Budd.  He will be 80 in May!  And he has a 14 year old son.  I did a similar interview with him by phone circa 1996 for a magazine which sadly didn't get published due to the mag folding.  Super nice person and quite a good interview subject.

[ffcal]

FYI, Budd is featured on a new one by Akira Rabelais called "The Little Glass:"

Akira Rabelais


Double CD Edition self released by the artist, comes in an 8-panel Digipak, the first disc featuring solo-piano compositions with Harold Budd, the second disc delivering an hour-long reworking by Akira Rabelais. Limited Import.

Akira Rabelais has long been on our list of the most interesting, overlooked producers in electronic music. His early material for Mille Plateaux offshoot Ritornell was nothing short of revelatory, a mysterious, complex maze of elaborate layering that genuinely sounded unlike any of his contemporaries, or anything we've heard since. He was then picked up by David Sylvian's Samadhisound imprint and released an incredible, career-defining head-scratcher of an album in 2004 called "Spellewauerynsherde' - one of the most spectacularly odd and brilliant electronic records of any description you'll likely hear - seriously - seek it out.

Anyhow, that preamble is just to set out the extent to which we're all Rabelais fanboys here - so this new double album, the first disc in collaboration with Harold Budd no less, has arrived here with much excitement, offering his first new recordings in over five years.

The Little Glass breaks down clearly over two discs; the first containing four plaintive solo piano parts by Budd and Rabelais, followed by a 2nd disc presenting Rabelais' hour long, inharmonic, electronic transformation of the preceding material.

https://boomkat.com/products/the-little-glass

[jdh]

Interesting words by Budd.The interviewer is boring and not that thoughtful,like he is reading a script and sounds like a kid..Love his music from the mid seventies to the late nineties.His solo work and with Eno and Guthrie are special.

[chris23]

Has anyone seen The Little Glass for sale in the US? I see the digital version on Bandcamp, but no physical listing.

Dude has a confusing website: http://www.akirarabelais.com/vi/x.html

[drone on]

I thought the interviewer asked some really good questions.  Although that intro he read before the questions was over the top gushing. 

[jdh]

A few decent questions,yes.Interviewer claims he is a huge fan of Sylvian but did not know he had lived in the USA for over 10 years? Common knowledge by anyone who was following him.Sorry,interviewer grated on me.Plus he sounds like he is 17.

[drone on]

New factoids gleaned from this interivew:

"The Pearl" (track and album) was named by Daniel Lanois, after he commented one of the tracks was "a little pearl."

The retirement announcement he made way back when was a mistake, he admits.  Things were not going well and he was having a difficult time, and he blurted out publicly he was quitting music, which wasn't what he wanted to do at all.