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In
the Arms of Love: Lullabies 4 Children + Adults by: Lawrence Russell
flamenco concrete
Where are you? Gently rocking in the darkness, half-asleep, the shrouded
landscape flickering past outside the window. You're on a train, perhaps
travelling through the Rockies, snug in a roomette. The muted chatter
of the wheels on the rails, metric, polymetric, isometric... coming and
going, going and coming. It's music. Are you dreaming? Must be. The stars
seem larger, their astrological patterns obviously navigating your journey.
Anxiety is a thing of the past. Although you are alone, somehow you feel
you are in the arms of love....
This is the ambience of "Dreaming On The Starlight Train", just one
of several such quasi-mystical tracks on Ottmar Liebert's latest CD, In
The Arms Of Love. Yes, he actually uses a recording of a moving train
as part of his instrumental. It's background, almost a whisper, a subtlety
in the overall mix of the soundscape... yes, "soundscape", for that's
what this CD is. The 13 tracks make up a narrative, which is like a radio
play without the dialogue... or a movie without the picture.
This stuff is extremely down-tempo, like the relaxed breathing of a
contented dreamer. It's also subtle, almost subliminal at times, something
the listener can grow into. You could call it environmental music, a means
of establishing space. OL is very much an acoustic painter, his sonic
architecture always extremely visual. What's the term? Sprechkunst? The
language of music, that quality in the tonality that describes the landscape
behind it.
And there always is a landscape, a shifting geography of foreground
and background. For the most part, the foreground remains OL's signature
flamenco guitar melody, while the background is a synth backwash, with
natural sounds merging metrically. Is this good old musique concrete?
Certainly a case can be made that all music today is nothing more or less
than a sound montage due to multi-tracking and signal filtering. Essentially,
music is an emulation of the natural world... and a means whereby we can
evoke the spirit world.
Implicit in the act is transcendentalism. Because the contemporary world
is so full of industrial noise, we become blase about what we hear. Surf,
birds, wind, rain -- they become cliches within our daily frame of reference,
become all motion without meaning. What OL has done here is re-articulate
the world we have become deaf to. As he's such a sensitive player, he
creates that romantic identification with Nature that the poets of old
wrote about. This is odd, isn't it, as he's the man who said that words
get in the way of the music... yet consider this recent passage from his
Internet diary:
It is amazing how the desert explodes after the first big rain. The
smell of the moisture hitting the dust is wonderful, sweet and almost
overwhelming. Grass grows out of the dust, cottonwood seeds from the Spring
suddenly produce 3 feet tall seedlings within a few days....
Is this not the sensitivity of a poet?
documentary and metaphor
So what about these docu-rocku lullabies?
Track 1, "In the Arms of Love". The tone is Mediterranean, with
the acoustic guitar triggering synth washes (not unlike Phil Manzanera's
ghostly "Lagrima")... guitar is also doubled, so the whole effect is rather
like a zither. Deep with sentiment, it's a farewell, the beginning of
a journey... in this case, into sleep. Processional, almost funereal.
Track 2, "Sea of Tranquility". The surf underpins the melody,
spreads horizon-ally. The water replaces the customary chordal strokes.
A pleasant floating sensation gives way to flight. Disembodied, like being
in an immersion chamber.
Track 3, "When I Close My Eyes". OL seems to like the key of
C. This is a strange piece, extremely slow, close to a stagger, which
drops occasionally into the flamenco fundamental like a descending shroud.
A bit of menace here, yet it's ambiguous enough that this sleep might
not be the big one.
Track 4, "Dreaming On The Starlight Train". This is a thing of
beauty. Nice doubling of his acoustic with the electric. In his press
release, OL says he got the idea from a train ride he took as a youth
from Cologne to Moscow. While it isn't new -- the hynoptic rhythm of trains
is a staple of radio dramatists -- OL's interpretation is superb. The
hell with planes. Next time, take the train.
Track 5, "Ode 2 the Morning Star". You might be awake or you
might be dreaming in the pre-dawn. Birds, bells, a gentle melody emanating
like a spiral from the star. Various creatures awake as they sense the
light. And you can sense it creeping across the landscape....
So the narrative develops, the lyricism as simple as a haiku. "Twilight
Rain", pure onomatopoeia... "A Secret Garden", vaguely eastern,
the terraced space of fountains and peacocks, like The Far Pavilions...
the beautiful solitude of "Walking Alone". Are there any anomalies?
You might wonder about "Querenica", which is almost too familiar,
too traditional [although there is some nice octave playing] and you might
wonder about the closing stanza, "Waves of Sound", which appears
to be a call & response homage to Brian Eno. Maybe you think Eno is a
bit cheap as a loopster when matched against, say, Terry Riley. But then,
why question OL's influences? Eno has paid his dues too. They are all
brothers of the mystic.
journey to the east
OL mapped this integrated foreground/background style in earlier albums,
most obviously in his 1996 double CD Opium. While it's an expensive little
set, it's well worth getting. Many of the compositions are framed by natural
and synthesized sounds. OL's painterly lyricism is beautifully demoed
in "Drop of water on a dry stone", which is a pure acoustic representation
of what the title describes. Or his electric guitar piece, "Chi wahwah
beauty", which seems more out of his familiar desert ambience than
Khatmandu. Cocks, birds, bubbling water, people talking in various languages...
these sounds drift in and out like life observed through a moving window.
This marriage of flamenco lyricism and documentary effect is intriguing,
helps move us beyond the professional ghettos music all too often malingers
in. Purity is for zealots and the naive.
On learning that free copies are available to hospices and hospitals
upon application to Higher Octave* , some might dismiss In the Arms of
Love as a Kervorkian serenade. After all, OL admits that his aim with
this CD is to put people to sleep in the ancient tradition of the lullaby.
But it would be a mistake to think of this suite as a subliminal massage
designed to shut down consciousness. On the contrary, OL's music is a
channel into the mystic.
"It seems to me the world keeps getting louder, and in response to that
I wanted to do something that was quiet," says OL. " (In the Arms of Love)
creates quite a contrast to modern life."
Yes. Another impressive piece of work from the acoustic gallery of the
New Age maestro. A logical development within the progression of his work,
a bit risky perhaps... but integrity doesn't come cheap.
And now... how about some more electro-dance/trance, Ottmar?
*SSRI and Higher Octave will send this CD to daycare centers, nurseries,
hospices and hospitals free of charge. Fax 310/589-1525 on letterhead.
Limited offer.
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