Get off the stage

As previously reported, there are various “things” that have fallen into alignment to suggest that Human Greed might actually work as a live performance proposition.
It is a nerve shredding thought to wonder how something so reliant upon process (treating, modifying, deconstructing source audio) and lacking in the dynamism offered by rock posture, singing, physicality, and so forth, could ever be anything other than frankly tedious to watch / engage with. So, despite having well grounded (and, to me, very exciting) ideas of how that situation can be remedied and dealt with it is still something that causes me anxiety.
Particularly when I come across things like Harold Budd’s Agua!
Don’t get me wrong – I love Harold Budd; particularly at this time of year when the soft-edged detachment offered by recordings like The Pearl, Plateaux of Mirror and even Lovely Thunder sit in beautiful counterpoint to the sharpening of the days, the charcoal scratch of trees against piercing blue skies… But with Agua – a Live album, the whole edifice comes over like Richard Clayderman on Mogadon – muzak of the worst possible order. I almost ate my iPod just so that I could shit this monstrous recording back out!

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