'Michael Nyman' reissue -- The Independent review
Jan 13th, 2012By Andy Gill, The Independent, 13 January, 2012
This reissue of Michael Nyman’s second album from 1981 – effectively his first with a Michael Nyman Band that included Alexander Balanescu and Roderick Skeaping – has aged well.
Its industriously cycling Anglo-minimalism, couched in strings and reeds, is redolent of early Peter Greenaway films: “Bird List Song” is lovely, silly and serious the same time, like the film for which it was written, The Falls. The serio-comic tone helps sustain the music’s appeal, compared to the joylessness of much American minimalism: this is music full of affirmative bustle, aware of its lurking pomposity, and not afraid to embrace the free-jazz squawks of Evan Parker and Peter Brötzmann on “Waltz”.
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/reviews/album-michael-nyman-michael-nyman-mn-6288757.html