There is a certain solace in minimal music—a contemplative joy emerging from sustained repetition. Michigan-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Erik Hall embodies this hypnotic charge on his absorbing new album, Solo Three, announced today for release on January 23rd via Western Vinyl.
Solo Three is the final entry in Hall’s critically acclaimed trilogy of reinterpreting contemporary pieces. The series began with 2020’s Music for 18 Musicians (Steve Reich) and 2023’s Canto Ostinato (Simeon ten Holt). While the previous LPs focused on individual works, Solo Three brings the trilogy to a sweeping close, weaving together the visions of multiple visionary composers: Glenn Branca, Charlemagne Palestine, Laurie Spiegel, and a return to Steve Reich.
Alongside the announcement, Hall shares the first single, a kaleidoscopic adaptation of Reich’s “Music for a Large Ensemble.” Hall calls the closing track “a sort of bookend and an ode to the process,” noting that Reich’s music “imparts a gratifying emotional arc… akin to a pop sensibility.”
Hall’s passion for minimalism ignited decades ago when, as a jazz-studies drummer at the University of Michigan, he first heard Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. The piece fundamentally altered his creative path. For his 2020 Music for 18 Musicians, Hall revisited this formative work by attempting a complete solo reconstruction of it. Working alone in his home studio, he painstakingly performed every part himself, replacing the original’s orchestral palette with his own keyboards, guitars, and synths—all without the aid of loops, programming, or sequencers. His approach resonated deeply with his audience and was widely praised. Reich himself wrote to congratulate Hall, saying he had “reinvented the piece.” His 2023 follow-up, Canto Ostinato, was also met with acclaim.
This unique, human-centric methodology defines the new album. Hall translates Branca’s “The Temple of Venus” with prepared piano and organ; Palestine’s “Strumming Music” becomes a meditative blur of guitar and felted piano. True to his method, Hall performs every part, layering instruments one by one. “It’s just so much more compelling to actually play every note,” Hall says. “Those micro-differences between takes create a sort of living, breathing magic.” The result is a rich, reverent, and exploratory homage to American minimalism.
Pre-Order Solo Three: https://lnk.to/solothree