Harold Budd

小簡(jiǎn)介
1936年，氛圍音樂作曲家Harold Budd出生在California。于26歲起開始他的作曲生涯，很快的，在隨后的幾年中聲名鵲起。1966年從University of Southern California的作曲專業(yè)畢業(yè)之后作品便逐年減少。1976年他辭去了工作，和英國(guó)先鋒人物Brian Eno一起專心錄制新作品。兩年后Harold Budd發(fā)行了
，從此建立了自己強(qiáng)大且獨(dú)特的個(gè)人風(fēng)格。之后更拉攏了Brian Eno，兩人交集不斷，合作出
和
以原聲鋼琴小品為主線的兩張專輯。
　　
　　拿Brian Eno相較，Harold Budd則更注重器樂所營(yíng)造出的氛圍氣息，簡(jiǎn)約而前衛(wèi)。背景下合成的婉轉(zhuǎn)碎音由鋼琴帶出，宛如裊裊升起隨即消散的青煙。
融合了popular jazz和avant-garde。與早期作品一樣，亦會(huì)存有非洲、巴西等地民俗的聽感體驗(yàn)。不同于現(xiàn)在許多的氛圍音樂家讓音樂隨自己的情緒恣意延伸，漸而喪失核心的做法。Harold Budd更像是畫外音，以詩人的口吻帶人一步步潛入情境之中，讓結(jié)構(gòu)完整得如同不自知而落入的圈套。
僅有四曲，均由波瀾不驚的和聲堆砌，再以豎琴的彈撥來配合反復(fù)，制造出空、凈、思、遠(yuǎn)的絕妙意境。
The American ambient/neo-classical composer who has most closely allied himself with the increasingly sympathetic independent-rock underground — through his collaborations with the Cocteau Twins Robin Guthrie — Harold Budd is also one of the very few who can very rightly be called an ambient composer. His music, a sparse and tonal wash of keyboard treatments, was inspired by a boyhood spent listening to the buzz of telephone wires near his home in the Mojave Desert town of Victorville, California (though he was born in nearby Los Angeles). Though interested in music from an early age, Budd was 36, already married and with children of his own, by the time he graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in Musical Composition in 1966. He became a respected name in the circle of minimalist and avant-garde composers based in Southern California during the late 60s, premiering his works The Candy-Apple Revision and Unspecified D-Flat Major Chord and Lirio around the area. In 1970, he began a teaching career at the California Institute of Arts, but continued to compose while there, writing Madrigals of the Rose Angel in 1972. After leaving the Institute in 1976, Budd gained a recording contract with the Brian Eno-affiliated EG Records, and released his debut album The Pavilion of Dreams in 1978. Two years later, he collaborated with Eno on one of the landmark albums of the ambient style, Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirrors. After recording two albums for Cantil in 1981 (The Serpent [In Quicksilver]) and 1984 (Abandoned Cities), Harold Budd again worked with Eno on 1984s The Pearl. A contract with Enos Opal Records resulted in one of Budds most glorious albums, The White Arcades, recorded in Edinburgh with Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins. Budd left Opal after 1991s By the Dawns Early Light, and recorded two albums for Gyroscope: Music for Three Pianos (with Ruben Garcia and Daniel Lentz) and the lauded Through the Hill, a collaboration with Andy Partridge of XTC. In the mid-90s, he recorded albums for New Albion and All Saints before signing to Atlantic for the release of The Room in mid-2000. In 2004 Budd decided to retire, claiming he had said all he wanted to, and that he didnt mind disappearing. His final outing, Avalon Sutra/As Long as I Can See My Breath, appeared on David Sylvians Samhadi Sound imprint as a double disc. The album featured 14 new pieces, some recorded solo, some recorded with saxophonist Jon Gibson, and some with a string quartet.
His collaboration with Eraldo Bernocchi, Fragments From the Inside, issued on Sub Rosa arrived in spring 2005.