13. Tori KudoThe Last Song Of My Life

This song was a heartbreaker for me. A lot of music I love is something that sounds like a tune, that leaves the tune, and yet is still part of the tune – where you can’t really tell where the tune starts and the craziness begins. This was a live performance and I believe that the instructions were ‘play the melody until you don’t’. Play the melody and when you’re not playing, play something else. That’s a pretty dangerous instruction, but you listen to that and wow, everybody really got on board. It’s very simple, as are a lot of Tori Kudo and Maher Shalal Hash Baz melodies. It’s like an hour long, and you get to hear this little melody that reminds me a little of Gavin Bryars’ early work, or Brian Eno’s label in the early 1980s. The music’s not necessarily very complicated, and then it starts to complicate itself – not by use of virtuosity, but by use of curiosity and detail. I’m interested in those kinds of complications. I think Tori Kudo is a surrealist of the highest order, and this record proves that.