STEVE REICH: Early Works. “Come Out†(1966).
This work is process music where the process acts on a short phrase. The phrase is run on two loops that slowly go out of synch and this causes phasing. One loop is in the left field and the other is in the right field of the stereo spectrum. Because of this, it’s easy to hear the loops go out of synch, at least initially. But it sounds like there is more going on than just the initial phase shifting. After awhile the verbal phrase (if you can call still call it that, at this point) starts to reverberate or echo, and then it sounds like maybe this process is fed into itself. After a while, the sound (it’s definitely no longer a verbal phrase (well, of course, it is, but you can’t tell that anymore)) starts to break up. Near the end of the piece it sounds like a combination of maybe a swarm of angry insects and the chanting, “Got one, got one, everybody’s got one†part of “I Am the Walrusâ€. But it doesn’t really sound quite like that. It just sounds like what it is, which you have to hear.
People have commented on this being a political work because the initial recording is of an African-American teenager describing being brutalized by the police, but I don’t really hear that. I wouldn’t have been able to guess that was what the phrase was about, if I hadn’t read it. I think it turns out to be a good piece, because the person’s voice has a nice, interesting timbre and the phrase is interesting (it’s sort of surreal, in a way) regardless of its political or historical context. Like Bob Dylan’s early songs, it’s more artistic than it is topical.