Albums by this artist

Ode Music (2000)

Guarapero/Lost Blues II (2000)

Will Oldham

Ode Music

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» PIERO SCARUFFI | STAFF WRITER

Will Oldham Ode Music Drag City, 2000 RiYL: Palace Music

A film soundtrack composed by Will Oldham (here operating under his own name after touring in 1999 as Bonnie Prince Billy) yields the material for the instrumental EP Ode Music. The music is spare, mellow and zen-inspired, summed up by the long "Ode #1," which plays the same guitar figures and organ drones over and over again.

Minimalist trance is also the name of the game for the other short fragments, with the notable exceptions of "Ode #2" and "Ode #4," which spin delicate melodies out of the recurring patterns. These compositions share the transcendental quality of John Fahey's masterpieces, although not the great guitarist's ambitions.

PIERO SCARUFFI | Piero Scaruffi runs the exhaustive music database Scaruffi.com. A native of Italy, he has also been praised for his work on the General Theory of Relativity, formal theories of the mind, and artificial intelligence. And no, we aren't making that up.