merlin:

Philip Glass Ensemble - “‘Train/Spaceship’, Part 1” [1982]

from Einstein on the Beach

It’s like watching someone do their taxes. In base-2. And Esperanto. As a palindrome.

And yet? Still gives me a giant arpeggioboner.

Before it was a Counting Crows song, Einstein On The Beach was a 5-hour opera, with no intermission, written by Philip Glass.  It’s mind-blowingly awesome and contains some of the most complicated arrangements you’ll ever hear paired with fantastic spoken word poetry.  And the performances, particularly on the 1993 Nonesuch release, are out of this world; the degree of difficulty, on a scale of 1 to 10, is somewhere around HOLY SHIT ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I’ll happily share Einstein On The Beach with anyone that would like to hear it. Leave a comment.

merlin:

Philip Glass Ensemble - “Rubric” [SNL, 1986]

Part of me loves that somebody tuning in for Lovitz’s Tommy Flanagan bit also got hit with five minutes of brainspray courtesy of the Glassmeister General

I will never let Philip Glass roll through my dashboard without reblogging.

He is America’s greatest living composer (with all due respect to Steve Reich), and don’t you forget it.

On a related note, if you all haven’t seen Koyaanisqatsi (or the whole ‘qatsi triology for that matter) then do yourselves a favor and watch it this weekend.