Christopher Hobbs / John Adams / Gavin Bryars
Ensemble Pieces

Featuring contributions from Derek Bailey, Cornelius Cardew and Brian Eno, this 1975 Obscure-released album matches up two crucial experimental compositions from Christopher Hobbs with a spoken word/orchestral suite from John Adams and a pitchy doom jazz diversion from Gavin Bryars. 'Ensemble Pieces' isn't the best known record in Eno's Obscure catalogue, but it's one of the most outstanding, playing like a who's who of the era's experimental minimalists. Systems music pioneer starts things off with 'Aran', a percussive piece he wrote for his four-piece ensemble Promenade Theatre Orchestra using random note sequences and toy instruments. This expanded version, for 12 performers, adds drums, triangles and woodblocks, with the two toy pianos sounding like broken clock chimes as they jerk playfully around the central harmonium drones. And Hobbs' second contribution, 'McCrimmon Will Never Return' uses the harmonium again, this time to shadow the complex, microtonally-cured sound of Scottish bagpipes. Playing four harmoniums at once, Hobbs slows down the tempo, revealing interactions and resonances that usually get lost in the chaos.

A1 Christopher Hobbs - Aran
A2(i) John Adams - American Standard (i)
A2(ii) John Adams - American Standard (ii)
A2(iii) John Adams - American Standard (iii)
B1 Christopher Hobbs - Mc Crimmon Will Never Return
B2 Gavin Bryars - "1,2 1-2-3-4"