It's Gonna Rain

Lying in bed this morning shouting at Radio 4's Today show (my usual matutinal routine), the weather forecast was glumly summarised as 'It's gonna rain', so sick were the presenters of repeating the same prophecy.

We know a very repetitive song of that name about rain, don't we kids?

It's called It's Gonna Rain, it's from 1965 and it was an early experiment in tape-looping and sampling by minimalist composer Steve Reich. I've loved it from the first moment I heard it. Sorry about the picture quality.


It's Gonna Rain Part 1 - Steve Reich from Lost Highway on Vimeo.


As a companion piece, John Adams' hypnotic Christian Zeal and Activity. The cadences and repetitive phrasemaking of gospel preachers really fits the minimalist mode. Apologies for the flippant visuals - Youtube really doesn't have much classical music. I've been searching for Turnage's Three Screaming Popes to no avail.

An irreverent approach to Christian Zeal and Activity

One of my favourite pieces of modern classical music is John Adams' 1971 Christian Zeal and Activity, which transforms Onward Christian Soldiers into a limpid, suspended backing to samples of an evangelist preacher: sampling was invented in the classical world, by IRCAM in Paris (who have just twittered this piece) and by various American composers, including Reich and Adams.

Some wit has added a Lego animation to this sublime piece. I think Adams might be pleased with it.

Musical Oasis

I've been listening to this pretty obsessively recently. No particular reason. You'll need to play it loud.