Meredith Monk - Our Lady Of Late (1988)

Fantastic and largely forgotten work of hypnotic music for voice and glass, recorded in 1973. "'Our Lady Of Late' begins with Collin Walcott playing a rhythmic, tapping introduction to the commonplace object -- a goblet of water -- that will provide the backbone of the work. The suite then opens with one of the most transfixing sections. Monk coaxes a ringing vibration from the water glass by rubbing a finger along its rim, as she will do throughout the piece. Then she matches the tone with her voice, joining its timbre and texture to that of the droning crystal. The contrast and kinship of the two sounds -- one living and organic, the other fixed and implacable -- are equally striking. They become more vivid as Monk tests here own harmonic flexibility against the goblets unchanging ring, playing a subtle game of semitones and overtones... She swoops and soars, skyrockets and nosedives, passes from guttural stops and strangled screeches to lyrical glissandos and the keening ululations of a lullaby... it's hard to encounter the purity and single-mindedness of this piece without thinking of the vibrant 'minimalist' style of composition...[it] recalls the drone of Indian music and the overtonal experiments of composers as different as La Monte Young and Alvin Lucier." This album were honored with the German Critics Prize for Best Records of 1986.(David Sterrit)