Iconic ambient composer Harold Budd dies

Avant-garde ambient composer Harold Budd has passed away. A Facebook post confirmed that the iconic minimalist died of complications related to the Coronavirus. He was 84 years old.

Born in Los Angeles in 1936, Budd played the drums growing up and, after graduating from high school, he joined Los Angeles City College to take a music theory course in harmony.

He would go on to spend time in the army, play with Albert Ayler, and study under the composer Gerald Strange at San Fernando Valley State College. Budd later gained a graduate degree from the University of Southern California, where he collaborated with Ingolf Dahl.

Budd is best known for his "soft pedal" style of playing the piano, which he only began playing frequently in his late 30's. “I wrote a piece in 1972 called 'Madrigals of the Rose Angel', and it was sent off for a public performance back East somewhere. I wasn’t there, but I got the tape and I was absolutely appalled at how they missed the whole idea,” he recalled in a 2005 interview with Mac Randall. “I told myself, ‘This is never going to happen again. From now on, I take full charge of any piano playing.’ That settled that.”

In 1970, Budd released his first recorded work The Oak of the Golden Dreams. Eight years after that, he released the Brian Eno-produced The Pavillion of Dreams. Budd continued to work with Eno, and compose and record through the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. Last week, he released a new album with Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins, one of his frequent collaborators.