Erik Hall - Solo Three [LP]

The slyly absorbing new volume from Michigan-based musician Erik Hall understands the contemplative joy in repetition. Solo Three is the culmination of what Hall describes as a loose trilogy, following his radical reinterpretation of Steve Reich's minimalist masterpiece Music for 18 Musicians, and his subsequent rendition of Simeon ten Holt's Canto Ostinato, a winding work of Dutch minimalism.This time, Hall boldly reimagines works by four distinct contemporary classical composers: Glenn Branca, Charlemagne Palestine, Laurie Spiegel, and, again, Steve Reich. It is a particular grouping that exists through Hall's singular lens for magnetic repetition and harmonic resonance. The resulting program unravels subtly but masterfully, each piece a kind of contrapuntal bliss a touch livelier than the last, all building to the Reich-ian reprise-an apt bookend to the series.Altogether, Hall has crafted a richly varied homage to four pillars of American minimalism, an elegant mix of accessibility and discovery. As ever, he performed and multitrack-recorded all the parts himself without loops, programming, or sequenced instruments, his solitary method still arguably novel to the classical canon. Meanwhile, within the context of modern production, this analog approach works as a gentle rebellion against a culture of faceless automation, instilling these recordings with a flesh-and-blood human touch. "It's just so much more interesting to actually play every note," Hall says. "You then get them directly juxtaposed, and as they repeat, all of those micro-differences between them create a sort of living, breathing magic."That living, breathing magic imbues every crevice of Solo Three, making it not just a stirring tribute to four giants of 20th-century minimalism, but a reflection of how their influence continues to reverberate today.