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To The Edge of the Earth and Back Again

I was reading on the internet somewhere tonight that Rachel’s—a desperately personal favorite of mine—are inspired by and play music somewhat derivative of Michael Nyman, and so I downloaded The Piano (which is apparently not the soundtrack but Nyman redoing many of the songs?) from Emusic… and definitely hear it. 

I can’t recall ever listening to any Nyman before (even though I know him and remember my parents having this soundtrack in their house). I do think pianist Rachel Grimes of Rachel’s plays in a style that harkens to Nyman but I do think the band’s music overall is distinct and unique. But a track like “To the edge of the earth”… well, it really sounds remarkably like the Rachel’s.

This discovery of similarity feels like both a marvelous boon and a slightly depressing realization. While I love the Rachel’s and have always craved more of their tunes (six albums and none since 2003), I also am realizing I enjoyed thinking that there was something special about them that I couldn’t get from any other music… and so learning there is “more” out there is therefore bot great and a bummer, if you know what I mean.

That said, I think that in particular the last works of Rachel’s from ‘00-04—the Full On Night EP, Systems/Layers album and Technology is Killing Music suite—represent the point at which the band truly began to leave the “minimalist-inspired late 20thC ‘post-classical’ chamberists” bit and enter a realm entirely of their own. These recordings took the evocative mood musics of their 90s works and invigorated them with experimental recording techniques, samples and electronic accoutrements, in a way that no one else has really done before or since.

For this reason, I’ve always thought it odd that many people** seem to widely prefer Music for Egon Schiele of all Rachel’s records, which is curious because unlike all of the rest of their records, which are wide, full-band experiments, Egon Schiele is a straight piano-violin-cello trio record lacking in just about everything that makes them exciting to me except those preciously captured “mood moments”. Which are still…fine, but sans textural flavor definitely allow the “sounds like Michael Nyman” claims to stand up.

[** — Keep in mind that “many people” in the context of Rachel’s fans is pretty small]

LISTEN: Michael Nyman, “To the Edge of the Earth”, from The Piano

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