Wind In Lonely Fences 1970 - 2011

This career retrospective serves as an excellent overview for listeners just coming to the name of poet and composer Harold Budd and hoping to understand the man’s unusual minimalist style and responsive range. As the title states, these works cover more than 40 years. They include collaborations with Brian Eno, XTC’s Andy Partridge, Zeitgeist, Ultravox’s John Foxx, and Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie. Starting with the two extensive pieces “The Oak of the Golden Dreams” and “Bismillahi ‘Rrahman’ Rrahim,” the set smartly throws all comers into the deep end of the exploratory pool. Budd’s works were meant to see what could be rubbed away and what could be sustained. The beauty that emerged landed him in the "ambient" category, which Budd insists “kidnapped” him (though, to be fair, the title track here does appear on the Budd/Eno album Ambient 2/The Plateaux of Mirror). For an artist who lived solely on the margins—and prematurely “retired” before setting off on one of his most productive periods—Budd is a musical enigma. He chose to work not with aggressiveness or abrasiveness but with soft-spoken stillness.