You may not have heard of Noah Creshevsky (born 1945), but he is, and has been for decades, one of the most amazing figures in current American music. His music, all electronic as far as I’ve heard, which he aptly terms “hyperrealist,” is a surreal mix of samples, chamber music from Mars. Weird as hell on first listening (and second and third), it nevertheless flows with its own inner logic, and is easily acclimated to. I’ve told him that, if I had the amazing electronic-music chops he has, I’d be trying to do something similar. Perhaps because I just returned from southern Mexico, it strikes me as bearing a kinship to mesoamerican art, very cleanly etched and clear in its intentions yet extraordinarily strange in its shapes and materials. I can’t think of anyone whose aesthetic is more original. He hasn’t received his due because there are so few distribution venues for bizarre electronic music, and because his lifestyle, as he likes to claim, is highly reclusive. Nevertheless, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote a lovely tribute to him in New Music Box several years ago.
So Noah’s newest CD Hyperrealist Music, 2011-2015 is now out on EM records. The first piece on the disc is titled Pulp Fiction, and in it he used samples from my Disklavier CD Nude Rolling Down an Escalator. I think it the best piece on the disc, though not by much, and his use of my rapid piano gestures is extremely flattering, like overhearing myself complimented by strangers. And I obtained his permission to post the piece here, for awhile. You should get the disc, and all his discs, because they’re phenomenal.