This classic minimal music album is now available again on vinyl for the first time since the 70s.

https://www.aguirrerecords.com/collections/aguirre-records/products/terry-riley-persian-surgery-dervishes-2xlp

Californian composer Terry Riley’s In C, first issued on vinyl in 1968, is widely acknowledged as a Minimalist landmark that altered the course of twentieth-century music. His influential album A Rainbow In Curved Air, which appeared the following year, is a vivid fusion of rock and raga, jazz and psychedelia realised through overdubbing on an 8-track machine which had recently been installed at the studios of Columbia Records.  

By the early 70s Riley had come to feel that scores were a distraction. Faithful interpretation of an already written piece was a deviation from the true purpose of making music, which was spiritual quest. Fortunately, some of those live performances, personal journeys towards a state of transcendence, were captured on tape. Persian Surgery Dervishes, issued initially on the French label Shandar, features two such concerts for electric organ and reel-to-reel delay, one recorded in Los Angeles on 18th April 1971, the other in Paris on 24th May 1972.

At the start of that decade Riley became a dedicated student of the great Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath. Looking into North Indian classical tradition he found correspondences to modal and cyclic ideas that he was already working on. In 1971, as a way to learn more, Riley himself started teaching Indian music at Mills College, in Oakland. That experience fed directly into his solo keyboard performances, but other influences were also shaping the music heard on Persian Surgery Dervishes. Personal research into ancient Persian culture and the poetry of Rumi lit up his imagination, while the repetitive swirling of Sufi devotional music from North Africa, which Riley had first encountered in Europe during the early 60s, reverberates through these performances. Jazz, as conceived by such masters such as Bill Evans and John Coltrane, is also present as an enduring source of inspiration. 

The Californian version of Persian Surgery Dervishes starts with low dark tones, dense and brooding like a huddled human figure, deep in introspection. But as the improvisation unfolds Riley’s buoyant spirit asserts itself, spiralling out in ecstatic coils, as though liberated from the grip of body consciousness. The Parisian concert conveys a different mood, brighter and more open in texture, more relaxed from the outset and breathing with greater freedom as it takes flight. 

Echoes of Terry Riley’s inspired music have spread far and wide - into progressive rock, New Age and ambient soundings, film soundtracks, blissed-out electronica and dance-floor trance. His fluent and hypnotic keyboard playing can be heard as part of a continuum, transmitting energies from ancient and distant musical sources into the living here and now. Persian Surgery Dervishes is a significant part of that picture, a mesmerising record of a vital stage in Riley’s ongoing quest for connection with the universal mind and the sublime music that flows ceaselessly from it. 

“Music is my spiritual path. It’s my way of finding out who I am.”  Terry Riley, in 1976

Terry Riley - Persian Surgery Dervishes - Performance 02 Part 1

Musik war schon immer ein ganz wesentlicher Bestandteil & ein treuer Begleiter in meinem Leben. Musik ist für mich ein Antreiber, ein tragendes Element, sie lässt mich Gefühle fühlen & mich spüren, gibt mir Kraft & lässt mich Energie schöpfen. Musik hilft mir, genauso wie meine tägliche Yogapraxis, mich mit mir selbst zu verbinden & in einen besseren Kontakt mit mir selbst zu kommen und gibt mir ebenfalls Ruhe und Entspannung. 

Musik ist Verbindung, Verbindung zu sich Selbst und zu seinen Mitmenschen! Musik lässt uns fühlen, lässt uns spüren, lässt uns in Kontakt mit uns selbst und mit anderen Menschen kommen. „Musik ist der soziale Klebstoff unserer Gesellschaft.“ (Dominik Eulberg)

Sozialisiert durch Punk, Hardcore und Metal habe ich über die letzten fünf Jahre meinen Weg zur elektronischen Musik gefunden und eine musikalische Evolution durchlebt, welche ich mir nicht mehr anders vorstellen kann! :-) 

Elektronische Musik erzählt Geschichten, lässt uns emotionale Reisen durchleben…. die Beats sind die Herzschläge und das ganze Sound- und Klangspektakel drumherum (ob harmonisch oder disharmonisch,  rhythmisch oder vertrackt, chaotisch oder voller Harmonie und im Einklang) das bunte Treiben des Lebens.

Ich liebe Musik und genauso ist es mir eine Herzensangelegenheit Musik weiterzuempfehlen…ich möchte andere daran teilhaben lassen. Musik verbindet & sagt mehr als tausend Worte! Deshalb möchte ich die Musik sprechen lassen und poste sonntags  „Das Set zum Sonntag“ , ein Set aus dem Bereich der elektronischen Musik, welches mir persönlich sehr am Herzen liegt, Sets welche mich selbst sehr berühren.

Musik war schon immer ein ganz wichtiger Bestandteil & ein treuer Begleiter in meinem Leben. Ich möchte hiermit kein Geld verdienen oder so, sondern einfach andere Menschen daran teilhaben lassen und das Gegebene in der Welt verbreiten.

Herzliche Grüße & Namaste` 🙏
Lass die Sonne rein…smile & breathe :-)
Thomas

I don't know what I'm doing someone end meeeee 😍☺️🥀🥀💀

Jose Macabra, is an artist, sound designer, producer, video director, radio DJ/podcast maker and curator. 

Jose teaches Sound Arts and Music Production at the London College of Communications, UAL and other educational establishments. His work nourishes many influences, from the industrial and noise panoramas, together with a legion of related genres such as ritual and the darker flavours of techno, blended with sound art, soundscape, art brut and experimental music.
 
Jose has worked with and for Kimatica Studio, Persona Collective, Ernesto Tomasini, Ron Athey, HR. Giger, Sally Mann, J. Milo Taylor, Nicola Serra, Christian Duka, Martin Delaney, Eraldo Bernocchi, FFIN DANCE Company, Rum Luck Theatre Company, Persona Collective, UCL, UAL, SAE Institute, HMPPS Belmarsh and Unite the Union, to name a few.
 
Jose Macabra has performed in art establishment venues, including Barbican, Tate Modern, National Gallery X, Oxford University, Tate Liverpool, BFI, The Photographer's Gallery, Waterman's Centre, The Museum of Consciousness, Camberwell College of Arts, London College of Communication and Kent University. Works involving Jose's music and sound design have toured significant festivals in London, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Hamburg, Athens, Brussels, Milan, Barcelona, Lisbon, Manchester, Liverpool and other cultural centres.
 
Jose's research interests include Electronic Music, Field Recording, Noise Music, Industrial Music, Improvisation, Sound Art, Performance Art, Queer Studies, Ritual Art Practice, Collaborative Practice, Altered States of Consciousness through Sound, Horror, Darkness, Film, Surrealism, Automatic Writing and  Spatial Audio.

Terry Riley - Persian Surgery Dervishes - Performance 02 Part 1

AguirreRecords