We use cookies on our website to provide you with the best experience. Most of these are essential and already present.
We do require your explicit consent to save your cart and browsing history between visits. Read about cookies we use here.
Your cart and preferences will not be saved if you leave the site.

Terry Riley

Born in Colfax, California, Riley studied at Shasta College, San Francisco State University. He was involved in the experimental San Francisco Tape Music Center working with Morton Subotnick, Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros and Ramon Sender. His most influential teacher, however, was Pandit Pran Nath (1918-1996), a master of Indian classical voice, who also taught La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela.

Born in Colfax, California, Riley studied at Shasta College, San Francisco State University. He was involved in the experimental San Francisco Tape Music Center working with Morton Subotnick, Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros and Ramon Sender. His most influential teacher, however, was Pandit Pran Nath (1918-1996), a master of Indian classical voice, who also taught La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela.

The Light is Real
Tip! Other Minds is pleased to present The Light is Real, featuring the trio of Thollem (voice and wavestate synthesizer), Terry Riley (voice), and Nels Cline (electric guitars, effects, and megamouth). This recording is the sixth iteration of the Thollem/Cline trio, with previous installments including performances by William Parker, Pauline Oliveros, and Michael Wimberly. The origins of this recording go back to an epiphany Thollem experienced in Northern New Mexico during the Covid-19 pandemi…
Organum for Stefano
In Terry Riley's words "I was invited to an art gallery in Los Angeles to hear a solo String Bass recital by Stefano. I arrived late and the concert was in progress, I was walking down a series of concrete halls to reach the galley chamber where the music was taking place. In the distance I could hear the sounds of french horns, trombones, strings and brass all mixing in a beautiful modal ensemble, and at the time I thought that Stefano must be playing his bass with a chamber group. I was amazed…
A Rainbow In Curved Air
*2022 stock* One of Terry Riley's most enduring works, and a haunting record that contains two extended modal minimal jams. By capturing Riley as both a conceptualist and as a virtuoso performer, this 1969 LP revealed a suppleness that stands in contrast to the baggage associated with “minimalism.” The range displayed over its two sides reaches out to the world (and, yes, the cosmos) rather than sitting inside any restrictive aesthetic field. As a result, the album can simultaneously suggest a f…
The 3 Generations Trio
The 3 Generations Trio' features the high priest of minimalism himself, Terry Riley, on synthesizer, piano, vocals and harmonizer, Gyan Riley on electric and acoustic guitars and Tracy Silverman on acoustic and electric violins. This work is a fascinating sonic trip (often driven by Riley's unique vocal ragas) through Asian and African traditions as well as western classical and jazz, reworked through modern aesthetics.
Church Of Anthrax
2022 small repress. Terry Riley (piano, organ, soprano saxophone) & John Cale (bass, harpsichord, piano, guitar, viola, organ) collaborated on this one-off album, released in 1970. At this time, rock music was a serious movement, removed from the joke it once was, quite unaware of the joke it would eventually become, and things like this sometimes happened. Cale, classically trained on the viola, must have been pretty pleased to get a shot to record with the '60s king of minimalist pulse, Terry …
The Harp Of New Albion
The Harp of New Albion is a transfixing solo piano recording, conceived and performed by world-renowned minimalist composer, the ever-innovative Terry Riley. His inspiration for this work came from a legendary harp, left behind in the New World in 1579, on the shores of Nova Albion, which is now called San Francisco Bay. A Native American medicine man is said to have found the harp and placed it on a cliff where the westerly winds played upon it and temperature and humidity changes created an ev…
Les Yeux Fermés & Lifespan
After changing the world in the late '60s with In C and A Rainbow in Curved Air, legendary American composer and father of minimalism Terry Riley abandoned tape manipulation and written composition to concentrate on longform keyboard cycles and improvisations. In the early '70s, while in Europe, he was invited to create scores for two films. The first, in 1972, was Joel Santoni's Les Yeux Fermés, a feature-length art film that instantly became a cult classic by virtue of its never having screene…
1