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It Just Misses for Me   June 24, 2002

All and all, for me this is a disappointing recording.


amazing   April 5, 2002
  8 out of 8 found this review helpful

This is perhaps both Reich's best work and the Kronos Quartet's finest performance. Different Trains is simply phenomenal. The piece consists of short "pitched" fragments of interviews Reich conducted, with always one instrument doubling the voice on the same pitch, over a quasi-minimalist texture with a few additional sounds (train whistles and such) in the background. The subject matter is train rides before, during, and after World War II, with the middle section obviously involving Holocaust stories. Uplifting, mesmerizing, heart-breaking, this piece is a must-have. Kronos is at their best, playing with great rhythmic clarity and an unusually nice sound for them.

Electric Counterpoint is a nice addition to this disc. While it doesn't have the emotional content of Different Trains, it certainly provides an enjoyable listening experience. A reviewer below with more knowledge than I of the electric guitar and this performer has gone into greater detail.


Different Albums   June 18, 2001
  9 out of 11 found this review helpful

This was always going to be a controversial album. Wherever Pat Metheny treads, he brings fans. Some may be disappointed to hear their axe hero performing a piece by another composer which offers scant opportunity for the musician's individuality to shine through. Some may bypass the Kronos Quartet piece altogether, thinking the use of the Casio FZ-1 sampler somewhat elementary compared to the sounds Metheny has extracted over the years from his beloved Synclavier.

But if they did that, they would be missing a treat. 'Different Trains' is almost Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express" with a point of view. Rhythmic trains sounds are generated by a classical string quartet. The sampled voice-overs don't always work for me -- I would imagine this was the first and last record Reich's governess would ever provide the vocals for -- but there is deep emotion in the recollections of the Holocaust survivors. After the intro, the best movement is track #3, 'After the War'.

Prior to 'Electric Counterpoint', Reich had written mainly for keyboard, hammered instruments and percussion. The piece is credited solely to Reich, but both Reich and Metheny have admitted that Pat provided considerable guidance on what would be unplayable on guitar. It is typical of the Reich brand of hypnotic music, and it is outstanding. Reich has specified that in order to perform it live, the soloist should pre-record up to ten guitar tracks and two electric bass parts, and then play the final 11th guitar part live against the tape. But it would be fascinating to hear the results if the whole thing was performed live by a 13-piece band -- two bassists and 11 guitarists! Chaos perhaps?!

If you like this type of music, then my recommendation, as ever, is to buy either version of 'Music for 18 Musicians'. Reich still hasn't done better than this 1978 masterpiece.


a passage to the underworld, and a ride back to life   September 19, 2000
  34 out of 44 found this review helpful

As I listen to Different Trains for the hundredth time, I reflect upon what this music means to me. I don't think I had ever experienced anything quite like it before...

It's magic, I believe... How else could something so distant and far gone come back to life through music? How else could something we all try to remove from our spoiled memories drill its way into our heads? How else could music be so powerful as to force us to admit: "it's true, it all really happened"? All of a sudden it's real, more real than it had ever been before. Holocaust, that is.

The twentieth century was the century of sight, they say... Photography, the cinema and TV have made our vision keener. This is good, no doubt, but there are counterparts. Through television, our eyes have gotten to be so familiar with death and the horrors of war, they no longer move our brains, or hearts. It all looks the same, therefore it all feels the same. Like fiction.

Steve Reich asks us not to look, or watch, or even "see," but to close our eyes and listen carefully for once... It's music, he has in store for us, but not the music we are used to... You see, art has no "ethical sympathies," says Oscar Wilde (and I agree with him). So music - perhaps art's most sublime form - should be concerned with Beauty and not with Reality. And that's the way it is, usually, and rightly so. I believe in Aesthetics, and I wouldn't want music to become a political ground. But if someone comes along who manages to combine beautiful music with Reality - or rather, to make a "documentary in music" - there can't possibly be any harm in that...

On the contrary, I believe, it can open a new channel into our hearts, pierce our recalcitrant consciences, allowing them to bleed at last. Different Trains, in my case at any rate, succeeded in doing just that. It threw History right at me, and it hurt - but oh so beautifully... It felt good letting it all out. It felt like through "hearing" my eyes could regain their power, and "see" what had always been there.


Different Trains   January 28, 2000
  2 out of 5 found this review helpful

This was my first time listening to minimalism and this is incredible. "Different Trains" is very well written.