‘The Well-Tuned Piano’ is an expensive album!

I won’t be purchasing La Monte Young‘s magestic suite, “The Well-Tuned Piano,” any time soon. Wish I could, though.

“The Well-Tuned Piano” is a suite of minimalist music composed in the late 1960s. On a recent trip to New York, I heard the third piece in the suite (appropriately named “The Well-Tuned Piano pt. 3”) on the radio. It was long, hypnotic, compelling, perfect. I just had to have it.

Well, no. Upon getting back to my hotel room, I fired up ye olde Web browser, and was shocked to find that the five-disc box set — from 1988 — is out of print, and at the moment, it’s selling for $1,998. No, thank you!

I guess we’ll need to wait until it’s back in print again. C’mon, long tail! Let’s get it up as a digital download!

If you like hypnotic minimalist music, I can recommend three modern albums, in this order:

1: Ludovico Einaudi’s Echoes (collection)

2: Helen Jane Long’s Porcelain (2007)

3. Einaudi’s Eden Roc (2002)