In composer, Charlemagne Palestine’s loft in an old spice warehouse where the pungent smells of oregano and thyme drift through the air, Rain Worthington sits at a Bösendorfer grand piano. A reel-to-reel tape recorder situated on the floor under the piano is turned on and Rain begins the first notes of a collection of dreamily evocative solo piano pieces.
This archival concert performance is contemplative and sensuous, mesmerizing and haunting – romanticism on the edge of minimalism.
Rain Worthington is a true “native” of the world of music, coming from it only with her desire to express the music she feels and knows and needs to share. The soothing quality of her work helps make the disturbingly basic emotionalism of it accessible to the rest of us.
Her music is evocative of other so-called “primitives,” such as Satie. Her style also references the serial repetitiveness of minimalism. And the emotionalism of her music often causes comparisons with the Romantic composers.
But Rain’s music is hers alone—more sensuous, more romantic, more mesmerizing—and ultimately unlike anyone else’s, her artistry transporting the listener somewhere else, no longer anywhere material, dissolving what things there are into musical imagery that transcends the dailiness of this life and world.
– Michael Lally, Poet & Actor
