Currie's Spicy Mix

- Elizabeth Kerr

The debut release from a new label, Colin Currie Records, is a cracker. Brilliant playing, an iconic composition and excellent engineering combine in Steve Reich Drumming to offer 55 minutes of unfaltering energy and excitement.

Reich, from the first wave of American musical minimalists, is acclaimed as one of Western music’s most influential living composers. According to John Adams, one of his highest-profile inheritors, he “didn’t reinvent the wheel so much as show us a new way to ride”.

Drumming was composed in 1970/71, and in 2006, Scottish percussionist Colin Currie pulled together his virtuosic eponymous group to play the work for a BBC celebration of Reich’s 70th birthday. It’s been a pillar of the group’s repertoire ever since and this studio recording, reportedly from 32 takes, is a fitting launch for the new label.