josht23musiclover

^I listened to it for the first time the other day. Honestly, it seems to me that the fact that most people find it so bad/weird at first is simply because most people don't listen to much jazz or 20th century classical or other progressive music. While I didn't grasp it in full (obviously no where near on a first listen) it doesn't seem to me to be particularly difficult. For example, the day before I tried it I listened to Boulez' second piano sonata and found that to be MUCH more difficult as far as hearing what's going on/general harshness, and I find much of the Xenakis/Stockhausen/Berio (and I've hardly listened to supposedly more difficult composers like Ferneyhough/Carter/Babbit/Boulez) I've heard to be more difficult as much of their music is more mercurial, in the sense that it is constantly changing and one can't, while listening, bask in fairly consistent polyrhythmic patterns.

Of course, we're all different and so some may indeed find TMR to genuinely be exceptional in this regard, but it seems to me to be just an expressive and fantastical album that I'm looking forward to getting to know.