Koyaanisqatsi (1998 Re-recording)

Fifteen years after its initial release, Philip Glass's score to Godfrey Reggio's film Koyaanisqatsi is still as timeless as it was meant to be. Glass's epic score, virtually the only sound in this non-narrative movie, accompanied an exhilarating, wordless meditation of images ranging from expansive, slow-motion landscapes to whirling-dervish city scenes shot using time-lapse techniques. Glass's music was a perfect match. The opening chant is still unlike anything Glass has composed, a Tibetan monk operatic growl that set up the foreboding sense of loss the film engenders. Most of the score, however, casts Glass's minimalist themes in orchestral expanses. Bass strings troll the bottom while flutes draw circles in the air. On "The Grid," manic keyboards drive into the night, pounding out the cyclical refrains that are a Glass trademark. When Koyaanisqatsi came out, it seemed opulent with its orchestral forces, but always at the center were the keyboards, reeds, and voice that are Glass's characteristic sound. Koyaanisqatsi means "life out of balance," but Glass's remarkably austere score remains perfectly poised. This newly re-recorded edition adds nearly 30 minutes to the previous CD release with two previously unissued tracks and extended versions of "The Grid" and "Prophecies," the two signpost works of the film. --John Diliberto Amazon.com essential recording

The Grid! The Grid!

Rarely has a soundtrack been so in tune with a film and vice versa as it is here. Now only is the film Koyaanisqatsi brilliant, but the soundtrack is as well. The film wouldn't be the same without the soundtrack. This is Glass's best soundtrack, and it's one of his most amazing works ever. This CD version is fantastic, as it expands on the original album (which was shortened due to vinyl constraints) and makes it even more majestic. The title track is one of Glass's most haunting works, along with Resource, but the masterpiece here is The Grid. Here it's in a mind expanding 23 minute version, swirling, generating, and tearing at all your senses. It's one of Glass's masterpieces, and the sequence in the film which this song accompanies is magnficent. But The Grid can stand all on its own as a mini opera/composition. Glass's ensemble performs it with such amazing intensity. Don't listen to it when driving, as you will be hypnotized (it almost happened to me one night).

A great soundtrack to an even greater film. Watch the film, listen to the album, repeat over and over and over and over and over again. April 4, 2008

Point Clarification -- This is Process Music

I must admit before I begin, that I have only seen the movie once, and haven't yet had the opportunity to purchase the soundtrack. The music is perfect for the movie, and often provides subtle interpretational cues for the images.

People who complain about repetitiveness are completely missing the point of Glass's music and genre. Several contemporary composers, including Glass, have experimented with Process Music. Process Music moves away from traditionally harmonic driven material to (as you've probably guessed) a focus on the process. Often composers of this style of music begin with an ostinato pattern(for non-music people), which is a short and repeated phrase, which over time, he will begin to subtly shift and transform. Trance music seems to have some orgins from this field of musical experimentation. This will probably seem jarring to those whose only exposure to music has been limited to Western style harmony driven pieces. However, if you can let go of the immediate desire to hear something, "new" and "immediate" there are many rich layers to be discovered through process music, and it is fascinating to hear where and how far the composers can transform that beginning ostanato phrase.

The real treat for process music, is that, in my opinion, its slowing down of the usual harmonic processes and changes allow listeners who haven't studied music for years to see how composers from earlier years make the leaps from the opening material and musical themes, to the variations on them that occur mid-piece.

He could have given everyone what they were expecting to hear, some nice little John-Williams-like soundtrack, which would have completely undermined the experimental point of the whole movie. This is a brilliant soundtrack covering interesting ideas in musical experimentation and definition. Please give this soundtrack a shot with understanding of what it is meant to be, and stop trying to impose normal western conceits of "what music should be." December 11, 2006

Fogged Glass

Like the re-recording of "Einstein on the Beach", this take-two files off the rough edges of the original - as if Glass's increased respectability over the intervening years requires that the musicians play more reverentially. The trumpets in this "Cloudscapes" are just *dull* - like they were spliced in from a bargain-price plod though one of Mozart's more routine symphonies. And the bland harmonizing of the chorus in "Vessels" could go straight into a Beach Boys record. Even half of the real thing - which is what the original "Koyaanisqatsi" soundtrack provides, more or less - will be more musically filling than this almost full helping of the Diet version. October 29, 2006

Just terrible

This review goes for both the CD and for the movie. Do yourself a favor and read a book instead. March 12, 2006

A Philip Glass Masterpiece (SEE THE MOVIE FIRST!)

Koyaanisqatsi is classic Glass, and is his most daring film score. Here, Glass succeeds in bridging the gap between his experimental minimalism and mainstream film media. It is however wise to caution: this soundtrack cannot be appreciated fully until one has seen the film. Indeed, Glass' music and Godfrey REggio's visuals are so interwoven they seem organic, living and breathing together. Thus, certain tracks, such as Cloudscape or Pruit Igoe cannot be fully understood unless one knows the visuals behind them. Also, one of the true masterpieces of Glass' career, the 20 minute long "The Grid", will be totally lost on people who have not seen the film's sequence of the same name, chronicling the lives of people acting along predetermined channels of activity (one of the greatest sights in cinema). My personal favourites from this soundtrack are the first and last tracks. In the title, "KOyaanisqatsi", Glass set out to create a music that was "ahistorical", that could have come from any period and any place in the world. This deep vocal track accompanied by a haunting organ is, in my opinion, Glass' single greatest piece, and can be appreciated outside the film. The final track, "Prophecies", is a further elaboration of this device, as Glass uses minimalist organ accompanied by beautiful choral arrangements, ultimately ending in a inverted version of the original Koyaanisqatsi canon that opened the film. March 3, 2006

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