The Tonearm Erik Hall: Multitracking the Minimalist Aesthetic
Today we’re putting The Tonearm's needle on musician and composer Erik Hall.
Based in Michigan, Erik Hall has spent the last five years doing something that sounds simple but definitely is not: recording landmark works of contemporary classical music entirely on his own.
Erik’s 2020 solo reconstruction of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians won the Libera Award for Best Classical Record. Reich wrote to tell him he'd reinvented the piece. A 2023 interpretation of Simeon ten Holt's Canto Ostinato followed, and now Hall has completed the trilogy. Solo Three came out in January on Western Vinyl, and it takes on works by Glenn Branca, Charlemagne Palestine, Laurie Spiegel, and Reich again—every note performed and recorded by Hall himself, no loops, no sequencers.
Erik is here to walk us through the project and the thinking behind it. Enjoy.
(The musical excerpts heard in the interview are from Erik Hall’s Solo Three)
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Dig Deeper
Artist and Albums
- Visit Erik Hall at erikhall.net and follow him on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.
- Purchase Erik Hall’s album Solo Three from Western Vinyl, Bandcamp , or Qobuz, and listen on your streaming platform of choice
- Listen to and purchase Music for 18 Musicians (Steve Reich) — Erik Hall's first volume — on Bandcamp
- Listen to and purchase Canto Ostinato (Simeon ten Holt) — Erik Hall's second volume — on Bandcamp
- Erik Hall's catalog at Western Vinyl
Composers Featured on Solo Three
- Steve Reich — composer of Music for a Large Ensemble and Music for 18 Musicians
- Steve Reich — "Music for a Large Ensemble"
- Steve Reich — Octet / Music for a Large Ensemble / Violin Phase
- Glenn Branca — composer of "The Temple of Venus Pt. 1"
- Charlemagne Palestine — composer of "Strumming Music"
- Strumming Music (original 1974 Shandar recording)
- Laurie Spiegel — composer of "A Folk Study"
- The Expanding Universe on Bandcamp — the album containing "A Folk Study"
- Bandcamp Daily — Laurie Spiegel feature — background on Spiegel's influence, relevant to Hall's treatment of her work
Earlier Composer in the Trilogy
- Simeon ten Holt — Dutch composer of Canto Ostinato, subject of Hall's second volume
- The Minimalist Composer Who Keeps Getting Left Out — article on Simeon ten Holt, minimalism, and Erik Hall’s solo recording
Steve Reich — Referenced Works
- Steve Reich — "Come Out" (1966) — early tape piece Hall encountered in his university musicology course
- Steve Reich — Music for 18 Musicians — the composition that set Hall's course
Collaborators
- Aaron Lowell Denton — designer of all three trilogy album covers; follow on Instagram
- Natalie Bergman — artist with whom Hall toured as drummer around the time of Solo Three's completion
- Brian Deck — producer and engineer at Narwhal Studio, Chicago; mixed Music for 18 Musicians with Hall
- Warren Defever — mastering engineer at Third Man Mastering, Detroit; mastered all three volumes
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