I AM CALLING SIERRA NEVADA, IT'S 10pm GMT, and I can't dispel the image of a mystic with a white beard sat at a keyboard surrounded by psychedelic flashes of colour swirling round in circles making me feel a bit dizzy. The patterns are repeating and I can hear a rich combination of vivid blues, greens and reds. I can hear different flavours of full-bodied wines and exotic fruits.
Concentrate. Go with it. Let it take me there.
The phone is answered and the image snaps to white. I hear a single, gentle voice and I am introducing myself to the legendary musical magician - Terry Riley. He speaks to me from his ranch in the mountains, surrounded by various keyboards, synthesisers and notebooks.
His laptop perched on a grand piano.
In the 1960s, Riley's sound world of repeated motifs and shimmering melodic lines were to influence and inform musicians such as The Who, Tangerine Dream, Soft Machine, Can and Brian Eno. His early association with fellow composer La Monte Young and his radical ideas about music helped shape and inspire a new movement in music continued by composers such as Phillip Glass and Steve Reich.
Listening to Riley's music is exciting and surprisingly unpredictable. His rich palette of sound colours nourish the ear and lead the listener into an energetic world with flavours of rock, jazz and Indian classical music. Influenced by John Coltrane, Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Schoenberg and Stockhausen, Riley developed a music traversing both popular culture and contemporary classical music.
His strong associations with Indian classical music, through his lifelong personal association with Pandit Pran Nath, shaped his musical and spiritual development.
When Riley arrives in Scotland this month, as part of the annual Triptych festival, he will perform two of his most seminal pieces, In C and Rainbow in Curved Air (Revisited), as well as a selection of more recent pieces from his Book of Abbeyozzud, a suite of 24 works for guitar and a variety of instrumental combinations. All of these have Spanish titles and take a different letter of the alphabet to begin their names.
His son Gyan will be performing on guitar.
My first encounter with Terry Riley's magic was as an undergraduate, playing his 1964 masterpiece In C. I wasn't prepared for what I heard.
The 53 notated musical cells, to be repeated at the players discretion, looked simple and unassuming: a repeated melodic improvisation over static harmony in C major, all fitting onto a one-page score. Yet when played, the recipe produced a hypnotic and ritualistic magic, a subtle changing of emphasis to listen to. This piece, more than any other single piece, gave voice to the minimalist movement in America.
Indeed it became its anthem.
As probably the most played piece in the contemporary ensemble repertoire, In C offers both players and listeners a "cosmic musical aspect". The composite of all these patterns created a new experience.
Riley laughs as he modestly diffuses the musical status of the piece. "I'm always amazed at the letters and e-mails about performances of In C - it's played somewhere in the world almost every day. Musicians of all kinds of skills can participate in the performance, even if they can't play all the patterns.
It's an exciting experience for musicians, being able to make these decisions of when to play and how to listen to other people, as they're playing. It's all written on one page so you don't have to carry a big book of music around. Everyone plays from the same part.
"
Riley is understandably more keen to talk about A Rainbow in Curved Air, an improvisation mixing several contrasting musical elements to create a kaleidoscope of sound colours, released on vinyl by CBS in 1969. This hypnotic record has a unique, yet instantly recognisable, sound world, with its combination of repeated elements played on an electric organ, electric harpsichord and "rocksichord". This electronic landmark would never have sounded the same had Riley not had access to the multi-track recording equipment that had just been developed.
It was the first CBS album to be recorded on eight-track, and was created by layering recorded musical patterns and improvisations one on top of the other.
"I did Poppy Nogood on a four-track and I thought I would be doing Rainbow on four-track too, because the four-track was very new to the studios in those days. Just as I started to bring my gear in to record A Rainbow in Curved Air, they wheeled in the eight-track.
We got a brand new machine! I got really excited because suddenly I saw all these possibilities. It seemed like we'd hit the top, and of course, who would know that now you have virtually no limit on the number of tracks you record.
"
It would be impossible to recreate a live performance of the album and be successful in replicating the synthesiser sounds and subtle layering techniques. Yet there is a particular sound to the album, which the public identifies. Any performance of A Rainbow in Curved Air (Revisisted) without samples or snippets from the original recording would be lacking in character and quite frankly, a different piece.
For the Triptych festival performance, Mikail Graham has sampled the original CBS recording and will play the samples while Riley solos on the Korg Triton 88. Willi Winant will play various hand drums and other percussion similar to the CBS recording, "so it reminds you of that experience, but then it is imbedded in a totally new approach to the piece, which has a form a little bit like the album, with new sections added".
Riley was working with John Cale of the Velvet Underground on The Church of Anthrax at the same time.
How was he was able to sustain his energetic improvisations and manage his creative moods? With a giggle, he replies: "It was a long time ago. I was recording with John during the day and recording A Rainbow in Curved Air at night - we could have more studio time if I worked at night.
I knew what I was going to do with Rainbow, but with John, we went in with absolutely no plan. Sometimes the mics would be open and we would just improvise. It was fun because we didn't have any expectations.
"
The 1960s really were exciting. Technology was things like tape loops. Today there's almost too much - there's such an abundance, it's confusing to know what to use and what not to use.
What we have learnt from Riley and his contemporaries is how to organise "sound colours" and combine them with the acoustic realm. By mixing rock, jazz and electronic techniques and not concerning ourselves with which genre the music falls into, we can produce fluid ideas which still have a very powerful and basic effect on us.
"I like technology but it doesn't necessarily heighten or deepen the musical experience, it just gives you a bigger palette to work with.
I'm reminded of what John Cage said: 'I don't have any music in my head. Until it comes out, I don't have it'. Lots of musicians are like that - you are actually more like a sculptor where you have this raw material in front of you, and you chip away at it and you shape it and that's kind of the way I like to work.
"
In Riley, you will be meeting a musical magician who will excite, thrill and entrance you - the composer and improviser honoured in The Who's song, Baba O'Riley. This month's Triptych visit is his first to Scotland and he is planning to take a magical mystery tour of the Highlands with his son Gyan at the wheel.
• Terry Riley plays the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, on 25 April, the Tramway, Glasgow, on 26 April and the Cowdray Hall, Aberdeen, on 27 April.
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