Riley, Terry

Les Yeux Fermés & Lifespan

Elision Fields

CD $13.00

04/24/2007 758131110128

EF101CD

MP3 $9.90

04/24/2007

After changing the world in the late ‘60s with In C and A Rainbow in Curved Air, legendary American composer and father of minimalism Terry Riley abandoned tape-manipulation and written composition to concentrate on longform keyboard cycles and improvisations. In the early ‘70s, while in Europe, he was invited to create scores for two films. The first, in 1972, was Joel Santoni’s Les Yeux Fermés, a feature-length art film that instantly became a cult classic by virtue of its never having screened in the USA. The second, Lifespan, directed by Alexander Whitelaw in 1974, featured Klaus Kinski. Both soundtracks were released in limited editions on LP and have long been out of print.

This first-ever CD release of these two classic Terry Riley soundtracks—both on one disc—was remastered from the original tapes, the hypnotic songs sounding far superior to the below-average vinyl pressings. Having brought the ‘60s Corti archive back into print, Elision Fields now turns its attention to the under-examined crucial period of Riley’s work—the ‘70s.