Search - Towering Inferno :: Kaddish

Towering Inferno
Kaddish
Genres: International Music, Special Interest, Pop, Rock

Track Listings (22) - Disc #1
1. Rose - Towering Inferno, Saunders, Andy [1]
2. Prayer
3. Dachau
4. 4 by 2
5. Edvárd Király - Towering Inferno, Saunders, Andy [1]
6. Memory
7. Not Me
8. Reverse Field
9. Occupation
10. Sto Mondo Rotondo
11. Organ Loop
12. Toll [I]
13. Toll [II]
14. The Run - Towering Inferno, Saunders, Andy [1]
15. Juden
16. Pogrom
17. Partisans
18. Modern Times
19. The Rose
20. The Bell
21. Kaddish
22. The Weaver

CD Details

All Artists: Towering Inferno
Title: Kaddish
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: Island Red / Pgd
Release Date: 4/16/1996
Genres: International Music, Special Interest, Pop, Rock
Style: Experimental Music
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPCs: 016253103429, 016253103443

Synopsis

Amazon.com

The British ensemble known as Towering Inferno take music to grand scales on Kaddish, a nearly 75-minute long electronic elegy of beats, voices, and screaming instrumentation performed in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Composed by Richard Wolfson and Andy Saunders, the music on Kaddish ranges from metal guitar to sampled cantors to echoing drum synths--often on the same track. Jazz, classical, Middle-Eastern, metal, electronica, and prog rock all feature prominently here, meshing together for epic effect. The beats on "Occupation" crescendo at the three-minute mark as the voice samples of Hitler, a Nazi, and a rabbi all collide. The driving strings and voices of "The Ruin" hark back to Steve Reich's legendary New Music composition "Different Trains." Best heard on headphones and all at once, this disc can be somber and riveting. The only problem is, this poem of tones has so much going on, it really needs an annotated libretto to explain itself. --Jason Verlinde

Similarly Requested CDs

	Gilberto Gil Sao Joao Vivo Genres: International Music, Jazz, Pop, Latin Music Label: Wea Int'l
?

	John Lydon Psycho's Path Genres: Alternative Rock, Pop, Rock Label: Virgin Records Us
2

	Carol Fran, Clarence Hollimon See There Genres: Blues, Pop Label: Black Top Records
?

	Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Pablo de Sarasate, Fritz Kreisler The Fiddler of the Opera Genres: Special Interest, Classical Label: Deutsche Grammophon
1

	Various Artists, Gustavo Santaolalla The Motorcycle Diaries: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Genres: International Music, Pop, Soundtracks Label: Deutsche Grammophon
2

CD Reviews

Making Art of History

Robert Carlberg | Seattle | 03/05/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The ostensible subject matter of "Kaddish" -- the Holocaust -- is in fact just the building material with which this collage was constructed. It is not so much ABOUT the Holocaust as it is an auditory artwork which stands alone. It helps of course to appreciate the gravity of some of the source material, but I don't agree with Amazon's contention that a libretto would be advantageous. Quite the opposite, I think it would limit the listeners' interpretations.

Wolfson (R.I.P.) and Saunders utilize several styles of music (rock, jazz, liturgical, folk, deep space electronics) as well as recordings of Nazi and Jewish speakers, crowd noises and various other sounds. The term "collage" isn't really appropriate I guess, because "Kaddish" is arranged into a series of musical vignettes, many with no sound effects over the top at all. It is this wide-ranging, unclassifiable character which makes "Kaddish" so difficult to pigeonhole, or summarize, or remember clearly. It is also what makes it endlessly fascinating.

East-German composer Georg Katzer made a collage in 1983 entitled "Aide Memoire" which contrasted Hitler's speeches and Reichstag rhetoric with Jewish folk music and popular music of the 1930s. "Kaddish" can be seen as the more-musical stepchild of that work -- more subtle perhaps, but no less powerful for that."