Broken Hallelujah

TERRY RILEY

One of Terry Riley's recent projects has him paired with the Kronos Quartet working for NASA. Thanks in no small part to Kronos leader David Harrington, Riley is commissioned to compose music based on radio waves collected by the Voyager space shuttle." [NASA] has done a couple of music projects before," explains Riley. "This one is based on Voyager's exploration, which flew by all of the planets. On board Voyager was a device called the Plasma Wave Receptor, which was invented by a Dr. Gurnett in Iowa. This [device] is able to receive radio waves the planets themselves broadcast, and each planet has a different sound wave."

Riley is the perfect candidate for NASA's space-age string quartets. Here on Earth, he's spent his time creating music light years ahead of his peers. Riley made his giant leap in the '60s with In C, a towering obelisk of a composition that cast an influential shadow over Philip Glass, Brian Eno and Pete Townshend (remember the intro to "Baba O'Riley" from. Who's Next?) and blurred the boundaries between classical music, avant-garde experimentalism and trance-inducing improvisation for all who followed.

Terry influenced not only Steve Reich, Philip Glass and their protégés, such as John Adams, but his influence spread out to certain European rock groups, such as Daevid Allen's Gong, Can and Tangerine Dream. In the case of these rock groups, I think sometimes Terry was the direct link."

He's been around for a long time and is still making beautiful music.

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