Rarely Heard: Meredith Monk - Dolmen Music

As a kid I used to sing a lot to myself creating imaginary songs, and I thought it would be a wonderful idea to create a music based on the sounds you could create by singing alone. And I didn't mean some kind of scat singing, but actually creating fully new sounds unheard of before. (This explains my fascination withe great singers). When I got Meredith Monk's Dolmen Music album in 1981 it was a great shock to me: this is exactly what I had imagined, and on the title piece she had deveolped the idea in a symphony-like composition to full perfection utilizing solo and ensemble singing and minmal, but very effective instrumentation. This is definitely one of my alltime favourite compositions, and I admire Meredith Monk and her work endlessly for it. Her music stands alone for itself and is hardly comparable to anything else you might ever hear. While researching this title I found this factoid: Hip hop artist DJ Shadow sampled Dolmen Music on the track "Midnight in a Perfect World" from his Endtroducing... album in 1995.