A conversation with Erik Hall, a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and one of the most compelling interpreters of the minimalist canon. We talk about the surprising resonances between J.S. Bach and composers like Steve Reich, Charlemagne Palestine, Simeon ten Holt, and Philip Glass. They discuss Hall’s acclaimed trilogy of solo overdubbed reinterpretations, his upcoming ensemble recording of Canto Ostinato with Sandbox Percussion and Metropolis Ensemble, the architecture of rhythm and harmony that links Bach to the minimalists, and what it means to engage deeply with another composer’s work. More at yearofbach.substack.com.
Albums Discussed:
Erik Hall – Music for 18 Musicians (Steve Reich) (2020) Spotify | Apple Music
Erik Hall – Canto Ostinato (Simeon ten Holt) (2023) Spotify | Apple Music
Erik Hall – Solo Three (2026) Spotify | Apple Music
Dennis Johnson – November (perf. R. Andrew Lee) Spotify | Apple Music
Oren Ambarchi – Shebang (2022) Spotify | Apple Music
Chilly Gonzales – Solo Piano (2004) Spotify | Apple Music
Todd Sickafoose – Tiny Resistors (2008) Spotify | Apple Music
Links:
Erik Hall website: erikhall.net
Evan Goldfine website: evangoldfine.com
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Evan Goldfine:Hello and welcome to the podcast, A Year of Bach. My name is Evan Goldfine and today I’m welcoming instrumentalist Erik Hall, one of my favorite interpreters of what’s often called minimalist music. He’s released a trio of homespun, overdubbed solo records, including my favorite album of 2023, an interpretation of Canto Ostinato by the Dutch composer, Simeon ten Holt.
He’s re -recorded that for a new recording with Sandbox Percussion and the Metropolis Ensemble for release in April 2026, which I’m very excited to hear live in New York in a couple of weeks. In January 2026, he also released Solo 3, a new album which includes interpretations of works by Charlemagne Palestine, Steve Reich, and others.
Today, we’ll talk about the experience of playing and listening to Bach and the minimalist canon, and we’ll talk about how those rivers intersect. There is an underexplored crossover that I’m sure we’ll all find illuminating. And with that, welcome Erik.
Erik Hall:Thank you very much for having me.
It’s a pleasure.
Evan Goldfine:So prior to these minimalist albums that you’ve recorded, you made some albums under the name[00:01:00]In Tall Buildings, which are more of a pop rock singer songwriter vibe with some electronic elements. And you were also in a band called Nomo, which was heavily influenced by Afro beat music. So where, where’s your origin, with your listening and where did you start? And how did that expand into all these different realms?
Erik Hall:Yeah, I mean, It’s been a really winding path, and it started as when I was a kid, and I was always into very different kinds of music. I was studying classical piano, I was playing in a youth orchestra in Chicago as a percussionist.
I went to college as a jazz studies drummer. And then, that’s where I kind of discovered Steve Reich and a whole lot of other kinds of contemporary music and joined a band and started going on tour making records. And, just kind of following every thread that seemed interesting to me.
Somehow. I stumbled my way back towards classical music in this kind of modern era, this new chapter of mine, making these interpretation[00:02:00]records.
Evan Goldfine:How did Bach play into the musical landscape at all? And I guess that was part of your classical studies when you were younger. And how has that music stayed with you even through all of these other bands?
Erik Hall:I think Bach is someone we all come back to, always. And there was kind of the initial study when I was a kid, that I think we all do. When I was in college, I distinctly remember, voice leading classes with the great pianist and musicologist James Dapogny.
He was a professor at University of Michigan and was one of the leading scholars. of early jazz. And, just an incredible guy. Anyway, he was my college level, Bach, teacher.
And then, it was funny. At one point, Nomo ended up at this, like, jazz, it was Aspen, it was Jazz Aspen Snowmass Festival. And we ended up in this clinic, and we were taking[00:03:00]courses from, Loren, Schoenberg, I want to say. I think he’s on Substack, yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised, yeah.
I haven’t checked in with what he’s doing lately, but he had this room full of like jazz dudes from all over the country, and every morning we started with him and every day for, I want to say like 10 days, We studied Goldberg variations and it was like, we started out by talking about the Goldberg variations and I think we all thought, well, this is great to talk about.
I wonder what we’ll talk about tomorrow. We walked in the next morning and it was, no, still Goldberg variations. And like literally for a week and a half, the whole course was centered around that, that, that body of work. And, we all just, it was incredible. We got so much out of it.
Evan Goldfine:What did the jazz guys start digging into the Goldbergs with?
Erik Hall:Well, I[00:04:00]don’t actually know that everybody appreciated the level of depth that we took. If I’m being honest, it seemed to be like his kind of pet project that everyone kind of had varying levels of resonance but thankfully I, it’s always kind of stuck with me.
And, I know that piece is probably a lot of people’s kind of gateway to Bach, but. For me, it’s, it’s still really, a go -to.
Evan Goldfine:Were there any special recordings of Bach from your early years that you would return to as a percussionist? What, what kind of flavors of Bach’s music were you most drawn to?
Erik Hall:I didn’t really listen to Bach as a kid. I studied it as a pianist, and it, so for, for better or worse, I had somewhat of an obligatory relationship with it as a kid.
I love the Goldberg recordings. I love new[00:05:00]recordings by Vikingur Olafsson and, I, I have this particular kind of somewhat random, super dusty multi LP
album of chorales, that, that seem to always come out at, at Christmas time. Perfect. It can be a little bit even like a kitschy relationship sometimes. Boy, it, it just, will always have a place in my heart.
Evan Goldfine:I had a similar experience, when I was learning to play classical guitar, there’s a whole repertoire of Bach adapted, mostly by Segovia and his contemporaries and followers, adapting all sorts of pieces, the violin sonatas, some cello suites to the guitar, and hearing it, I listened to some records and it didn’t quite sink at first. But playing it along with hearing it, watching the architecture and how that came to life was something that really sparked a seed in me back 25, 30 years ago when I first started playing.[00:06:00]Yeah. And it grows, it’s grown over time as I got deeper.
So that’s, that’s been part of the fun part about this project too, seeing how Bach is sort of the anchor point for so much of this music. Yeah. And maybe I’ll ask you how you got back to the minimalist composers and how that became the source of, and we can talk about the word minimalist and how that’s sort of a controversial word in itself.
But yes, I use that to cover the style of music largely defined by, like, Steve Reich and Philip Glass in the 1960s and 70s. But how did you find your way back there, being like, this is music that should be reinterpreted in a different kind of way?
Erik Hall:It happened pretty organically, honestly.
I discovered Steve Reich in college. We focused on his early tape phasing tape loop pieces in my musicology course. But then, I stumbled upon Music for 18 Musicians kind of on my own. And that was like, my kind of,[00:07:00]epiphany, it really made a mark on me and it kind of stuck with me as one of my favorite pieces of music.
Evan Goldfine:It is a seminal work of that whole era.
Erik Hall:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s undeniable and it’s so, that was, over 20 years ago and fast forward to, I think it was 2018 or 19., I had been in various bands. I’d been making records, like you said, as In Tall Buildings, touring with the band Nomo, touring with the band Wild Belle, and I kind of was coming off of a couple of album cycles and tours and then wanted to kind of dig into something in my studio, but I didn’t really feel, compelled to be writing or writing songs, but I wanted to be recording, and I, was kind of spinning my wheels, and my wife made this kind of passing comment just like, wait, well, why don’t you just do a cover of Music for 18 Musicians or something?[00:08:00]
Evan Goldfine:Oh, that’s so great.
Erik Hall:And that’s truly how it began. And it immediately struck me as a great idea of something to try. And I started, and it just went pretty well every step of the way. I was happy. It seemed a little bit crazy, but I, I kind of felt it out and realized like, no, I think I could actually tackle this and it could be compelling.
Evan Goldfine:It’s a bit of a crunchy record with a lot of electronics, more so than other recordings, which are. I think almost exclusively acoustic. How did you come to that? How did you deal with some of those gaps between the organic voices, for example, or bassoons and layering that onto other instruments and those choices that you made?
Erik Hall:Well, the approach was really, it’s, it’s pretty simple. It’s just, it’s the instruments that I have and my studio and can play, rather than the instruments it was written for. So that was the concept and because I’ve been[00:09:00]making records in my studio with, like you said, more kind of like pop rock oriented works, but, still there’s electric guitar and bass there’s synths.
But there’s also piano, an old Hammond organ, Fender Rhodes electric piano. It was actually mostly recorded acoustically, with mics and in, in my space. But, because there’s some electronic instruments, tones. Yeah, it has this kind of modern electronic sound. But, within the kind of overall palette of the instruments that I have and can wield myself, there were very much, decisions to make with regard to which instrument of mine ought to best convey each particular instrument of his.
It wasn’t random. Each instrument had to adhere to a certain energy and convey the same, not exactly the same timbre, but just have the same kind of identity and, and, and energy as his. So it was[00:10:00]a really fun puzzle to solve really.
Evan Goldfine:Yeah, yeah, it totally works. For me, the minimalists are about celebrating very subtle shifts in harmony and timbre that are accentuated through pulse and pattern, right? So Bach’s counterpoint. To bring it back to the, to our main subject at hand. His is more like explicit harmonic movement and the timbre is more implied through instrumentation or interpretations by the individual performer.
But the rhythmic flow in Bach is also crucial. Without that, it just sounds sort of flat. So where do you, where do you think this overlap between these two genres, between Bach and the minimalists?
Erik Hall:Well, I’ve never articulated this, but I agree that there’s this common thread, with regard to the rhythmic information and the harmonic development and this kind of gratifying[00:11:00]arc, there’s a journey that, you, embark on.
And the pacing and the, and the, sometimes it’s repetition and, and sometimes it’s just the, rhythmic density, is absolutely a factor in, in conveying the spirit of that path. I think it’s, and again, I haven’t thought about it in this way, but I absolutely. I see a similarity there between someone like Bach and someone like Reich, for me as a listener at least.
Evan Goldfine:Yeah, for sure. I mean, Bach is more dense in a certain way, and maybe even more intricate. But because it’s moving so quickly a lot of the time, it’s hard to get in this sort of trance state that you can get to as a listener with a Steve Reich or a Glass or like your more recent album with, with the Charlemagne Palestine, that piece, the name of the strumming, what’s, I’m sorry.
Erik Hall:Strumming Music,
Evan Goldfine:Strumming Music.[00:12:00]
Yeah. It is very highly driven, but it is barely moving, and it takes a long time to get from one place to another, but, suddenly, you’re in a completely different spot than the first one, and you find that in Bach also, you’re in a completely different key, but he’s driving you, he’s bringing you there bit by bit, but you really have to be more focusing on, like, how he’s doing that, rather than recognizing yourself, In a new spot as in this other sort of music.
Erik Hall:Strumming music is probably the most actual minimalist piece that I’ve engaged with, the most subtle shifts in harmonic overtone presence and information, that the most subtle increase in, in intensity and how you’re hitting the instrument.
And how that change in the performance interacts with the gear I’m using to capture these[00:13:00]performances. Like where the mics are, and whether I’m compressing, or if so, how much. I really enjoyed tapping into some of the personality of the studio itself. I’m not talking about post -processing or any sort of trickery, but just using the studio as an instrument, using all of those tools together to really highlight those subtle tiny changes.
I love that. Yeah.
Evan Goldfine:What do you think about the beat in this kind of music also, because if you’re just like with Bach, I think it’s if it’s too much on the grid, it’ll feel metronomic and kind of boring and even lifeless.
Yeah, but you need to keep the pulse going at the same time. So it can’t be too far off the grid. And this is something that I’ve struggled to articulate in words. A great[00:14:00]performance for me is one that is both not too metronomic and not too afield that it’s resonating with this sort of emotional rhythm, is, is the phrase that I’ve, I’ve come back to.
What do you think about that in this sort of music that’s meant to be so exacting on the beat?
Erik Hall:I agree that there’s a balance there and, for some of these more complex pieces that I’ve tackled, I have used a metronome, a click. and so in that sense, Like Music for 18 Musicians, for example, or on this new record Music For a Large Ensemble
Those are on the grid technically and pro tools, but they’re not quantized, right? I’m using the grid essentially just as a metronome, because there’s a lot of things to cover and I want to make sure I don’t have some sort of train wreck, but there’s still a lot of,[00:15:00]smear in the time, that there’s, there’s that many performances stacked of just me playing and I am not going in and cleaning up and making it perfect. All of those little micro differences and where I’m hitting the, the beat are there, and, and so I, I have felt good about that level of imperfection and just the human element.
And so I think that for this music to be on the grid is one thing, but for it to be quantized, that would be putting it into a completely different style of music, maybe. And so, yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s really important to be deliberate about those choices.
Evan Goldfine:Yeah, I also felt the reason why the Canto Ostinato album works so well is that it does have this blend of the, the human on the grid.
So far, for listeners who might not know this,[00:16:00]this is a relentless and wonderful piece. It was new to me when I heard it on your album. And I ended up going hunting for other recordings cause I liked the album so much. And I think that your recording is the only one that performs it with a sense of drive that it needs.
And I think you’re playing it at a pretty brisk tempo relative to some of the others, and it’s a little bit more of a modest sized composition than some other, interpreters, which can go on for two, three hours long, which is, it just doesn’t, it didn’t give it to me, what I was wanting. And I think the compressed nature of it, and also the human imperfections of it provided some excitement that I didn’t have in some of those other recordings. On this record you were playing three different kinds of keyboards and overdubbing. What was the challenge and opportunities of doing that all by yourself with those three different Layers of tracking, what kind of decisions did you have to make in terms of balance,[00:17:00]were there re -recordings, were you chopping in, what were your misgivings, go on from there.
Erik Hall:Yeah, that was one where, like backing up to Music for 18 Musicians, when I recorded that, I did each of the 14 sections in a day. So I would record every instrument on one section, and then the next day I’d start with the next section, and I would kind of sew them together, in Pro Tools.
With Canto Ostinato, there’s 106 technical sections in that piece. It’s really more divided into, like, giant swaths of, chunks of that music. So, I got kind of a handle on the whole piece. But I knew that I wanted to record it, in pieces. Like, I didn’t want to just sit down and play the piano from start to finish.
I wanted to record each hand separately. I wanted to record[00:18:00]two different, right hand variations that were recorded separately. There’s the left hand on the organ. There’s the left hand on the piano. There’s a Fender Rhodes kind of switching between the two different right -handed parts.
So I did it in sections. At no point did I play the piece from start to finish without stopping. So that might come as a surprise to some listeners or like, like cheating, but it was just a matter, cause I knew I wanted to create a recording that was not just a straight acoustic performance, but this studio environment, kind of immersive, larger than life, like the instruments are right there, and you are amongst them, and the stereo field is wide, and, I was okay with that, and so, it’s funny, because it wasn’t until After[00:19:00]I had finished and released that record that I actually finally learned how to actually play the piece two hands from start to finish, straight through as as one would, and I can do that, but it was kind of like a backwards approach to getting to know that piece.
Evan Goldfine:Yeah. There are a series of variations on that record, which I’ve listened to a lot. My son is deeply into astronomy, and we often go up north in upstate New York to an astronomy club, and when we come back at the end of the night, it’s often late, and he’s like, he wants to listen to that album on the way back so it’s such a cool thing so it’s like from like 11:30 to 12:30 in the morning and it’s just it’s a great after watching astronomy sort of album you can imagine yeah so there’s little groovy sections There’s this fun part[00:20:00]with like a dotted quarter where the it’s like coming before the beat.
It’s like in the 20s or 30s of the sections that are just like little hooks that I keep remembering, even though these things are very similar to one another a lot of the time. But there’s little shades of differences in each of these variations, and sometimes they’ll go up an octave or two on the keyboards, but there’s an overarching feel of this beautiful development and drama.
Which hits at about, its peak about two -thirds of the way through, and there’s all these great themes that you’ve got, and then there’s a gentle wind down, and it feels really satisfying, and it feels like there’s an endpoint, and this is about variation 87 or so, and then there’s another 15 minutes, and you get another recapitulation of that stretch, but it sort of feels like I was so satisfied at that, like 40, like maybe 42 minutes in, it’s in the score to keep going, right?
Where did you feel about that? Is my experience resonant with yours? Did you feel like, do you, do[00:21:00]you like that last part or didn’t feel like, I was like, I felt so pleased at the 40 minute mark. It’s like, what’s happening? I have another, I have another 20 minutes with this.
Erik Hall:It totally resonates and it’s so funny because I did consider stopping after 85 or whatever one it is. I thought about it, and because I also knew that I was going to put this record out with, I work with the label Western Vinyl and we were putting these out on LP and I wanted it to fit on an LP and I thought, well, if this were a 40, minute record it’ll sound all the better, on an LP, but, it’s interesting because if you listen to, I would say the kind of like quintessential, original recording maybe of, of Canto Astonado, it’s the four piano live concert recording. And, it’s three hours and that gives a whole[00:22:00]separate meaning and emphasis on the back half of that piece, it’s like that section it’s section 88 that actually seems to go on forever. On my version that’s 15 or so minutes, it’s section 88, that has all these, it’s like 88 A B on to double Z, I think. so it was a little bit of a needle to thread when I decided, no, I’m not going to cut that off of my recording. I’m going to include it. I want to do the complete piece. I like the length, that I ended up with, with 88 and section 91, which is kind of like a variation on 88, but, I agree, like after the initial, when you first hear the kind of main theme that, which in and of itself is this incredible reward, you’ve been listening to this crazy,[00:23:00]angular thing, and suddenly there’s this like beautiful melody.
I don’t want to give too much away to anyone who hasn’t listened yet, but it’s, It’s awesome. It’s an incredible piece.
Evan Goldfine:Huge payoff,
Erik Hall:Huge payoff. But it’s like what I love about the complete piece is that you, you get to return, there’s without, without the back half of the piece, there’s no, there’s no refrain,?
And, the way that all of the different recordings and performances choose to get back to that theme at section 95 I think is really cool to examine because sometimes it’s this great build up and this huge, like drop. Other performances it’s more kind of, it’s already kind of resigned and it’s a little bit more subdued and it kind of creeps back into it. I love the flexibility there and the endless ways of interpreting that. Yeah. That returned.[00:24:00]Yeah.
Evan Goldfine:So did you become acquainted with the piece from that three hour long four piano?
Erik Hall:There was that recording. Yes. That was the first one I heard. And then the other recording that, that I really, I’ve listened to a lot and love is the, it’s pianist Ivo Janssen is his name.
And it’s him with, they’re called Amsterdam Mallet Collective. And it’s from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. It was like, mid -2000s, or? Yeah, I think I listened to that one. Yeah, 2005 or so. Yeah, I love that one, too. So between those two recordings, I kind of figured out how and where I wanted mine to fit in.
Evan Goldfine:Yeah, and you’ve come to re -record the album with a whole other ensemble. So how did that come about? What’s happening with all of that? and that’s coming out in April for everybody.
Erik Hall:Yeah, it’s just been kind of one[00:25:00]step after the other. I put out my solo rendition, and at that time, there was a, the New York Times wrote about it, there was a piece about Simeon ten Holt that included me and my new record.
Meanwhile in New York, Andrew Cyr, who is the artistic director of Metropolis Ensemble, I found out about it and got in touch about adapting the piece for a large ensemble outdoor performance at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, with Sandbox Percussion and Metropolis Ensemble and, Sandbox Percussion’s summer seminar that they do at the New School, which includes like 30 percussion students from around the country.
So suddenly there was this invitation to arrange a sonata for 50 or so musicians. including mallet percussion, woodwinds,[00:26:00]strings, and for that concert we had, I was playing Fender Rhodes, we had a Wurlitzer, and we had two other synthesizers as well, so, and we did this in 2004,, outside, and it was, epic and beautiful, and we decided quickly that we needed to take that project into the studio, so we, we, we really kind of honed it from there, it’s not 50 people on this record, it’s more like, I think it was about a dozen or, I can’t even remember offhand, but it’s 12 or so people.
I’m just playing the piano, two hands. It’s much more like an acoustic organic performance with this large ensemble, kind of chamber ensemble approach. And, it was, it’s just been a total dream. Being able to be a part of a project like that and just a recording like that, it’s truly surreal.
I listen back to it and I[00:27:00]can’t believe that I get to be a part of it. It’s insane.
Evan Goldfine:So there were new orchestrations composed based upon the harmonies and, and the notes that were there.
Erik Hall:Yeah, yeah. And that was, that process was deep in and of itself, just choosing the ways in which we can, extract and kind of reframe each of these lines.
Early in the process, I was working with Johnny Allen from Sandbox Percussion and a musician composer in New York, Ben Wallace, who helped us create this kind of map of the whole piece. And he kind of was able to extract... the original piano score is, is the single, it’s like the grand staff plus an additional one or two staves of optional music, and then there’s sometimes there’s an additional bottom staff.[00:28:00]Ben took these and he basically blew it up into this array maybe like 16 different optional lines that could be played that were each very, very simple. When you put them all together, you get the full picture.
And we use that as kind of like a starting point to map out the piece for the different instruments. David Leon is a sax and winds player and composer in New York as well. Incredible musician and he really spearheaded the wind arrangement and did absolutely beautiful work.
As for the strings, I took care of mapping out the strings and deciding what to have them do for this new album. and kept it really relatively simple and and just really capitalized on the ability to have sustained tones yeah and taking[00:29:00]a little bit of a liberty because that’s really one area where the score...
Evan Goldfine:It’s pretty spare, right?
Erik Hall:Yeah, and there’s no whole notes in the score, and, we’re having the violins just really like holding these almost like the way you would sit down at a synth synthesizer and play like a lush pad, it’s like, that’s what our strings are doing, but everything is adhering to the notes on the page.
And so it’s, it was a really cool, really fun process of making all those decisions.
Evan Goldfine:I’m getting to imagine it now because with a sandbox percussion group, you were going to be hearing a lot of those percussive notes on top of these smeary strings underneath with those harmonies.
It’s gonna be great. Yeah. So, what could be next? I mean, would you consider recording Bach? Like, I’ve found that some of the adaptations of Bach have been, most are not successful in this sort of way. Could[00:30:00]you imagine one that could be successful in your aesthetic?
Erik Hall:I have tried to, honestly, and...
Evan Goldfine:What pieces were you, were you thinking about?
Erik Hall:Well, each time I even start to think about it, I just... I don’t know that I actually have the chops as a player to do it at this stage in my life. I could see about putting in the time and, I don’t know. It’s funny because when Music for 18 Musicians came out, there were, in the discussion around the release of that record, there were absolutely some, at least a couple, comparisons to Switched-On Bach, right.
And kind of thinking about it as like the synth version. I’m very deliberate about steering away from that[00:31:00]approach. To me, this is a kind of modern palette and production and, some of these electronic sounds are, are novel to this canon.
But, the last thing I want to do is make something that’s distracting in that way. And, and that’s any sort of. gimmick. Yeah. Or novelty. Yeah. I want it to be just a new framing of how this music can come to life. I don’t know what Bach could or would do, and I am open to all ideas.
So, your ideas, your listeners’ ideas, I want, I want to hear them. I’ll start thinking.
Evan Goldfine:All right, everyone write in to me, and we’ll forward over to Erik, what you think. what kind of pieces will be. Switched on Bach for those people who don’t know this is a very hard album to find online. It’s not on any of the streaming services.[00:32:00]
It was from the 1970s by a performer named Wendy Carlos, who adapted a number of short Bach pieces, the most popular ones for synth and synthetic organ. Well, synthesize an organ sort of, and some of the pieces are more successful than others. The ones that sound more like, I think overly synthy are probably the least successful, and they sound very much of their time and the other ones that are more organ-ish. I think it sounds fine, but I’ve never really connected with that record.
Erik Hall:Yeah. And, don’t get me wrong. I think that record is an important piece of modern music history, but not one that I’m trying to emulate.
Evan Goldfine:Yeah. So this one, this question came from my son, cause I told him we were talking today, but he said, if Bach had an overdubbing machine. or pro tools what might he have done with it with his aesthetic[00:33:00]with the tools that you have.
Erik Hall:I mean, it would be probably the most radical music we can imagine.
I would love to, to hear what, what he would have done with the tools that we have. I mean, I think that we have this tendency to assume that the artists. of the past were kind of like very stoic in their, in the relative limitations that they were working within.
This comes up a lot with regard to just studio recording, and ear and microphones and computers. I would like to think that If the tools that we have now were available then, I mean, it would have only been a good thing. They would have been making just some of the raddest stuff we can imagine.
Evan Goldfine:Yeah. Well, this has been great.[00:34:00]I’d love to ask you for a couple, record recommendations. What are some albums, I guess in the minimalist canon or anything else that come to mind that you would share for people to understand your music and your sensibility.
Erik Hall:Sure, well, let’s think here. Two very different vibes. Great. There’s, there’s this, piece that I actually know very little about. I’m not very well equipped to actually speak on it, but, composer by the name of Dennis Johnson. It’s a piece called November. It exists in a couple different places online.
There’s this one version on Bandcamp that’s actually kind of recent, I think. It is dark, it’s slow, and it’s hours long. I love it, but it’s like, it’s when you kind of want to, like, get a[00:35:00]little bit down and stay down. It’s phenomenal.
Evan Goldfine:You listen to it on a walk? Are you, are you going to sleep? Are you having a glass of wine? What, what do you use it for?
Erik Hall:I’ll put it on at home when I’m, when I’m moving around the house, doing different things, but I’m not trying to be energized. It’s very mellow, very, very beautiful and kind of dark. So not for everybody, but something to check out on the other side of the spectrum is a record that came out a couple of years ago by Oren Ambarci, and it’s on Drag City. It’s called Shebang. Okay. It is kind of a weird cross between free improvisation and subtly manipulated electronic music. It’s kind of a collaborative record. There’s different players that contributed remotely.
He’s playing electric guitar.[00:36:00]I don’t remember the name of the drummer, but the drumming is incredible. Jim O’Rourke contributed some synthesizer and piano. It’s this just like pure, it’s just pure energy. It’s very rhythmic. It’s about a half hour long, it’s continuous, and just really cool, really energetic.
I put that on when I want to feel the opposite of the way that November makes me feel.
Evan Goldfine:What about one in the middle? Do you have a recommendation for your everyday, less energized, but maybe less catatonic?
Erik Hall:This is, how this is the most difficult question to answer, like what’s your favorite music?
Evan Goldfine:Of course, oh no, yeah, and it’s because what are you leaving out, right?
Erik Hall:Yeah, exactly. The answer to this question could never be comprehensive, and[00:37:00]oftentimes it’s not even accurate, because you suddenly can’t remember what you even like.
Evan Goldfine:Of course, and you don’t want to say Revolver, and you don’t want to say, Aja, and you don’t want to say, Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, because there’s this thing where, if you like esoteric music,, you don’t want to be too esoteric, there’s a whole bunch of layers here, all that I’m trying to do with my project, And I think my listeners is to be exposed to new and interesting things that are great, that they might not have had.
So this doesn’t necessarily have to be Erik Hall’s favorite, three albums of all time, but just, what, what other album would you recommend for people that they might not know?
Erik Hall:Yeah, well, so one that I always come back to that I just love, that I’m kind of a sucker for, is Chilly Gonzales Solo Piano.
This is a, relatively contemporary record, of just like these wonderful little etudes that, very[00:38:00]much kind of indebted to Satie, but clearly modern,, very beautiful. There’s already solo piano two and three. I don’t know three very well. Two is also great, but I would start obviously with the first one, Chilly Gonzales Solo Piano.
Evan Goldfine:Excellent.
Erik Hall:It was actually put on, like I first heard it when I was playing in a band called Wild Belle. And we’re about to sound check at a music festival in Mexico. We’re on this big stage and it was like early in the day. There was no audience yet present. And we were setting up and to test the PA, the front of house engineer put on this record, Solo Piano by Chilly Gonzales.
And we’re outside in this almost kind of rain forest setting. It was in this national park, crazy, beautiful, surreal day. And we’re out on this giant stage and there’s this lovely, felted,[00:39:00]solo piano record playing. And it just was the perfect contrast to where we were and what we were doing. And it’s just always stuck with me and then, I ended up just fully adopting that record. I love it.
Evan Goldfine:That is such a great way to encounter interesting art. It’s when you’re not expecting to get knocked over by anything, and it’s just the right place at the right time that it happens for all of us. It’s just an amazing thing. I had a sound check record. This is not one of my top three records, but one that I’ve listened to a lot.
I was at a soundcheck at, not a soundcheck. I, it was before the act was coming out. It was like the, just, in the club. There was an album called Tiny Resisters by a bassist named Todd Sickafoose. Which is like this nonet and it was like this really cool, like grooving, like post Mingus thing going on, but it was like really rock oriented also, but like great brass and[00:40:00]I was like, this is great and like it kind of almost like put me off center for whatever kind of, angular guitar concert I was going to at that point, but and then I got that record and I’ve listened to it like 20 times since then, but it’s great to be put in those moments. So I’m going to link to all of these records that we talk about in the show notes so people can click on them on youtube and apple music and spotify. Great. Well Erik this has been great check out Erik’s website for tour dates is it on there Yeah. Yep.
Erik Hall:Erikhall.net.
Evan Goldfine:Great. And that’s with a K. And, I will be at the show in April, and at the New School in New York and I’m very excited. and it’s free. So go RSVP. It’s crazy that this is going to be a free show. There’s no reason to not go. So, go check it out. Erik, thank you again for your time today.
Thank you so much, Evan. It’s really been fun, and I appreciate the invitation.
