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Reich: Different Trains, Electric Counterpoint / Kronos Quartet, Pat Metheny | 
| Creators: Steve Reich, Pat Metheny
Label: Nonesuch
Category: Music
List Price: $16.98
Buy New: $14.99
You Save: $1.99 (12%)
Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 9654
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 79176
UPC: 075597917628
EAN: 0075597917628
ASIN: B000005IYU
Release Date: October 25, 1990
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | America - Before the war | | • | Europe - During the war | | • | After the war | | • | Fast | | • | Slow | | • | Fast |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com essential recording
Different Trains (1988) will probably go down in history as Reich's masterpiece. And deservedly so. Reich's phase-shifting minimalism is made dazzlingly entertaining in Different Trains, which is scored for string quartet and digitally sampled voices that repeat bits of speech concerning trains and Reich's experience with them growing up. The sinister part here is than some trains carried Jews to death camps. That's here as well. The Kronos Quartet has also never sounded better. Electric Counterpoint (1987) has one guitar--Pat Metheny in this case-- playing to 10 pre-recorded motifs, also on guitar. You absolutely need this. --Paul Cook
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 Breathtaking and Emotional March 19, 2008
Jason C. Porter (Athens, OH)
I heard "Before the War" in a Music class I was recently enrolled in. I thought the use of word painting to convey the sense of trains was fantastic, so i bought the album and checked it out. I hadn't head anything by Reich before, but I am so happy I bought this album.
It isn't for your casual listener. Don't expect to play this CD and hear a variety of melodies and arrangements. Different Trains uses minimalism to convey an experience that takes you through all aspects of World War II. The pieces also uses clips from interviews Reich conducted with people who lived through the times. At different times, Reich will sample these clips in the music, while the melody imitates. The second piece, During the War, immediately changes mood with its blaring sirens and darker overtones. The resolution, After the War, wraps it all up perfectly.
This is truly a remarkable album, and I recommend it for anybody who wants to experience an amazing story through deep music. Electric Counterpoint, while not as captivating as Trains, is also a fantastic piece to listen to alone with your eyes closed. Let this music overtake you.
Trains February 14, 2008
John Gummere (Ashokan, NY USA)
I wouldn't even bother calling it music. To me, it's more like a profound tonal experience, something the minimalists have been trying to achieve without much success imho, but with this one I think Mr. Reich has truly hit stride.
I grew up living near a railroad, and as a small child my first memory was a closeup of a steam locomotive puffing and clanking and moaning by; some sort of strange animal it was, with its powerful mechanical parts exposed. My mother, an accomplished classical musician, always said she loved the sound of the whistles too. So, it was quite an emotional moment to hear it again, with a string quartet providing the rhythmic accompaniment, no less! Thanks, Steve.
The air-raid sirens made it go even deeper.
Essential Steve Reich December 12, 2007
Philip Spires (La Nucia, Spain)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The two works on this disc are essential listening for anyone with even the slightest interest in Steve Reich. For those who don't know the composer, there are perhaps easier places to start - the Music for Mallet Instruments, Octet, Music for 18 Musicians, for instance.
It's now nearly 20 years since these pieces were recorded. Different Trains juxtaposes the Kronos Quartet with taped railway announcements, words overheard on trains, lines relating to train journeys etc. Throughout, there's a true integration of the form, since the strings pick up rhythmic and melodic lines from the spoken words, develop them, amplify them.
Electric Counterpoint is performed on an electric guitar. Pat Metheney plays against pre-recorded tapes to create something like a complex - but surprisingly easy on the ear - fugue (well, canon).
I have one criticism of the disc in that I have always found the recording quality of Different Trains just too much "in the face". It's too close for my liking, but the problem isn't great enough to detract from the playing or the piece.
 highly worthwhile December 15, 2006
Ben Safran
Different trains a very powerful piece, full of irony and juxtopostion that are used to the greatest effect. Its one of Reich's best, but it's actually not very minimalist for him, which may be why I like it. Of course, Kronos does an excellent job. Electric Counterpoint is pleasant for about a movement or so, but in the end it comes across as thin and dull compared to Different Trains.
Excellent First Reich Disc December 4, 2005
Stephen M. Glaister (Auckland, New Zealand)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Both pieces on this disc are delightful and brilliant - very emotional and accessible I find. Neither has the vast (Well-tempered klavier of percussive phase-shifting!) scale of _18 Musicians_ or _Drumming_, but that's almost certainly an advantage for most people (and has been for me). Just two quick comments about the pieces:
1. Holocaust themes in art are often ponderous... "Different Trains" ingeniously avoids all sorts of traps of that sort by starting us off, as it were, in the New World with technology and optimism. The darkness enters later and is all the more powerful for it. Now I think about it, this piece makes the disc a great gift for a precocious kid... if they like Pink Floyd or other broadly conceptual rock stuff they'll dig this.
2. The second "slow" movement of "Electric Counterpoint" is flat out gorgeous.
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