Rhys Chatham
Pythagorean Dream

No. I have no intention at this moment of attempting to speak in detail about such an important musician and such an imposing figure as Rhys Chatham and the significance he has had over the years concerning minimal and avant-garde music. I won't do it, and not because I don't think it would be interesting (it certainly would), but because I believe it would truly take a lot of time and space to do so and, more importantly, it would require a wealth of knowledge that I sincerely and humbly admit I do not possess.

Rhys Chatham has a lengthy career behind him (we're talking over forty years of career). After starting as a flute player, struck by his interest in rock'n'roll music and specifically the Ramones, he began playing the electric guitar and from that moment onward worked on music trying to associate and bring together the classic and somewhat formal 'scholarly' sound of an instrument like the flute with the fury and impetuosity of the electric guitar.

Recently, I wrote about the latest work of Jozef van Wissem and how he has tried with his work to introduce an instrument like the lute into what one might call a more popular dimension. In practice, but only seemingly, it may seem that Chatham has been doing the same thing for forty years. Only in reality, much more than this, he has explored sound in all its aspects and dimensions, not only seeking to experiment in this way but truly coming to conceive music as something that is a form of conceptual and profoundly visionary art and as such not only something that should be listened to, but a true and complete sensory experience.

'A Pygharorean Dream' is his latest album, released three years after the previous one and, as you might expect, it is not, of course, something typically easy-listening, but instead another album of minimalist experiments and a cryptic journey into new dimensions of sound. The album was released via Foom Music and was entirely played, produced, recorded, and mixed by Chatham himself. It essentially consists of two parts, two long compositions of about twenty minutes each, which are somehow different from one another due to different purposes and intents that Rhys Chatham had while conceiving them.

The first part fundamentally consists of and is based on the sound of the guitar and Chatham's desire to experiment in a genre known as American primitivism, thus implementing his guitar style with typical fingerpicking elements and fundamentally inspired by one of his lifelong references and one of his heroes from his youth, John Fahey. The intro of the song is accompanied by the sound of the trumpet, the impetus and strength of the composition are evident from the first notes: we are practically involved in what appears to be a sort of ancient ritual, a mantra, it almost seems we can see ourselves flying aboard a plane and beneath us rages a stormy sea. Something close and at the same time too distant and that we cannot touch with our hands, as we are closed within the cabin.

At this point, the unmistakable sound of the e-bow enters, and we are gradually immersed in an increasingly esoteric atmosphere, experiencing inner spiritual journeys and thus arriving at the second composition, when Chatham introduces the sound of the flute, in what for him is a familiar rhythm, conveying a kind of sense of anxiety to the listeners. Listening to its sound, there's a strong sensation of being imminent to the moment when something might happen. The unforeseen becomes predictable and finally occurs: the composition ends, collapses upon itself with the explosion of a guitar sound that plays like church bells and echoes the reverberation of people who have passed and their lost souls resonating from the bottom of a frozen lake of a small town lost in a remote and perpetually snow-covered location.

What else to add. No, this is obviously not a pop music album, but it's not a classical music album either. It's simply avant-garde and minimalism. Take it or leave it. If you love the genre, you'll definitely take it. If you don't like it, take it anyway. Or at least give it a try. A lot of bands like Sonic Youth, Swans, Godspeed You! Black Emperor have always looked to Rhys Chatham as a point of reference and a source of inspiration. Do the same with his music and approach this album as if you were doing so with one of the works of the aforementioned bands.