ABSTRACT
This has always remained for me a succinct and eloquent description of minimalism, against which to gauge the relative merits of new entrants to the field. In particular, Mertens’s evocation of innocence and hypnotic and religious states conceptualizes concisely a range of possible sensations that we, the audience, experience when encountering minimalist works. The notion of libido speaks of the sheer rhythmic exhilaration and consequent global popularity not only of minimalist but also of more urban popular music genres. Largely due to the visceral and ecstatic qualities that minimalist music shares with its urban contemporaries, it has achieved wider mass-cultural dissemination than its more cerebral counterparts, particularly through its use in film soundtracks and upbeat marketing campaigns.
