Come Out is a 1966 piece by American composer Steve Reich. He was asked to write this piece to be performed at a benefit for the retrial of the Harlem Six, six black youths arrested for committing a murder during the Harlem Riot of 1964 for which only one of the six was responsible. Truman Nelson, a civil rights activist and the person who had asked Reich to compose the piece, gave him a collection of tapes with recorded voices to use as source material. Nelson, who chose Reich on the basis of his earlier work It’s Gonna Rain, agreed to give him creative freedom for the project.
Blood and Echoes: The Story of Come Out, Steve Reich’s Civil Rights Era Masterpiece
Fifty years ago, the composer debuted his tape-loop experiment Come Out—a piece that put forth the voice of a man beaten by police, an injustice that still reverberates in our Black Lives Matter moment.
Read the article at
Phase
Reich took this idea of signals falling out of phase (as the tape loops moved out of sync with each other) and began to apply it to instruments and performance. Here’s his 1967 piece Piano Phase. Designer Alexander Chen has created a visualization that allows you to see how and when the piano’s move out of phase with one another.
Sampling COME OUT
Because Come Out was built from a recorded sample of audio, it’s worth mentioning here a few examples of other artists who have sampled or quoted Reich’s piece.
Madvillain – America’s Most Blunted
Reich took this idea of signals falling out of phase (as the tape loops moved out of sync with each other) and began to apply it to instruments and performance. Here’s his 1967 piece Piano Phase. Designer Alexander Chen has created a visualization that allows you to see how and when the piano’s move out of phase with one another.
Tortoise – Djed (Bruise Blood Mix)
Tortoise sampled Come Out in their album Tortoise: Remixed.
Tortoise is an American experimental rock band formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1990. The band incorporates krautrock, dub, minimal music, electronica and jazz into their music, a combination sometimes termed “post-rock”. Tortoise have been consistently credited for the rise of the post-rock movement in the 1990s.
Camper Van Beethoven – Come Out
Camper Van Beethoven performed a cover version of Come Out on their album New Roman Times. “The 1980s indie rock legends reunite for a concept album about a fictional America divided into warring republics like the secular Republic of California and the Fundamentalist Christian Republic of Texas” – Pitchfork
Captain Beefheart – Moonlight in Vermont
The phrase “Come out to show them” in Captain Beefheart’s “Moonlight on Vermont” from “Trout Mask Replica” (1969) is generally regarded as a nod to Steve Reich’s “Come Out” (1966). A copy of an LP which included “Come Out” and works by other electronic composers, has been described by visitors as being played in the Magic Band’s shared house where the composition of, and rehearsals for, “Trout Mask Replica” took place. Here’s the part of the song: