A while back while I sifting thru the postwar ‘classical’ LP section at Academy I stumbled upon a 3 song compilation of up-and-coming contemporary composers (released in 1966 or so) which featured a then relatively unknown emerging composer named Steve Reich and his new tape phase piece “Come Out”. The record was still shrink-wrapped with a note designating it for intended use on college radio only and it was not to be sold. $3 later, I was the proud owner of possibly Reich’s first release, a wet dream to a private press fanatic and contemporary music fiend like myself.

It was a few days later when I stumbled upon a syndicated rerun of Family Guy just at the right moment to catch Olly’s “It’s Gonna Rain” forecast. I totally nerded out, immediately realizing what I had to do; It was Reich’s first work after all, and arguably one of the most important landmarks in twentieth century composition, how could I not?

I guess it would’ve been more ‘accurate’ for me to attack this project by phasing cassettes, but I instead opted to do the number-crunching and calculate out the number of frames I had to time stretch the sample to sync up in ~1 minute.

Quite frankly, I have a hard time believing I am the first physically associate the two, but here it is none-the-less.

Tags: cover, mp3, pork lion, steve reich