Philip Glass - Koyaanisqatsi: Original Soundtrack Album From The Motion Picture (1983)

My CD is the 1993 Antilles reissue. The soundtrack was subsequently re-recorded and reissued in 1998 then a complete score was released in 2009.

Sometime during the autumn months of 1983, my buddy Scott and I piled into a car and headed into Houston to the Greenway 3 movie theater to check out the new art film Koyaanisqatsi. From the review in The Houston Post:

Call Koyaanisqatsi a Flashdance for would-be intellectuals, and you probably won’t be far off the mark. Still, it’s hard for me to be too critical of any film that elicits such a deliriously joyful response.

And, as would-be intellectual, I just couldn't resist. We both loved the movie and Scott almost immediately purchased this soundtrack. I did not, but eventually bought a DVD copy of the movie because that's really the way to experience this production. Nonetheless, I recently saw this CD in the clearance bin, so I picked it up. I've never heard the music without the stunning visuals - will the music hold up? Let's spin this thing and find out.

Press of the time:

• Rolling Stone (★★★): "Mozart as produced by Brian Eno"
• CashBox: "Highly recommended"
• Stereo Review: "you either enjoy being bludgeoned by interminably repetitive little motivic fragments or you don't"
• High Fidelity: "an aural counterpoint to the film's stream of visual information"

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: I'm liking it better than I would have guessed and, yes, it does hold up without the visuals. The first two tracks, the slow-moving title track and the a capella vocals of Vessels both sound great. About halfway through the latter piece, the synths enter and it loses its charm. Track 4, Pruit Igoe, sounds like a regular soundtrack cut mixed with a little Carmina Burana so it's a nice change of pace. The cut that gives you the best ride is The Grid, which starts slow and easy then gradually builds into a frantic mess of multi-rhythmic arpeggios over the next 15 minutes. Exhausting yet exhilarating. I had forgotten how much Glass relied on wordless vocals in this soundtrack, but I'm really enjoying the vocalists performances here. The analog synths sound dated but that's what I would expect from an early '80s joint. If you like Glass, you'll like this. Then again, if you like Glass, you've already heard this.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: see above. The film remains a fun watch on its own merits plus we now get the added feature of it being an early-'80s visual time capsule. On a side note, the Greenway 3, renamed and expanded, is still around and showing art films. Good for them.

This soundtrack was most likely my first exposure to minimalist compositions so I probably should have paid more attention to it as a 17-year-old kid but I was more interested in combing the import bins for the latest New Romantic album releases. Turns out my lack of knowledge of minimalism really didn't hinder me as I studied for my music degree a couple of years later because the music faculty at the time wasn't concerned with any music that wasn't at least 50 years old. I hope that paradigm has changed.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Philip Glass - Heroes/Low Symphonies (2003)
Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass (1995)