1 - Arvo Part - Alina (ECM)
Alina is a perfect moment, a feather brushstroke of an album that
luxuriates in open spaces. It's actually comprised of only two
early Arvo Pärt works. "Spiegel im Spiegel" is
a slowly evolving Escher-like melody that keeps folding back on
itself in subtle variations. There are three versions here, two
for piano and violin and one for piano and cello. Each of them
could go on forever. "Für Alina" is pure ambient
music. Recalling Brian Eno's "Music for Airports," its
fragile melody seems to hang in the air, gently blown, never resolving.
Arvo Pärt brings us, once again, into the spiritual depths
of his Estonian soul.
© John Diliberto 2000
2 - Vas - In the Garden of Souls (Narada)
Azam Ali fronts Vas, a trio from Los Angeles who take their name
from the Latin word for vessel. Born in Iran and raised in India,
she sings in a dialect that posits an imaginary voice between
those cultures. The third album from Vas continues to mine an
exotic vein of trans-cultural vocalise, first tracked by Lisa
Gerrard and Dead Can Dance. In creating a music that’s part
ritual and part epic journey, Ali, who also plays the Persian
santoor, draws inspiration from the graceful hymns of Abbess Hildegard
von Bingen, the melodically rapturous ragas of India and the ecstatic
prayers of the Middle East. She casts her songs on a landscape
of plaintive counterpoint from cellist Cameron Stone and percussion
from Greg Ellis, whose propulsive rhythms are shaped by udu drums,
tablas, dumbeks, and frame drums. With IN THE GARDEN OF SOULS,
Vas harvests a music of the most delicious delirium. Released
early in the year, this album is still revealing its secrets.
© John Diliberto 2000
3- Preston Reed - Handwritten Notes (Outer Bridge)
Preston Reed used to be mentioned in the same breath as Leo
Kottke and Michael Hedges, and deservedly so. He's fallen a bit
out of view in recent years, but this new CD reveals what all
the excitement was about. In fact, HANDWRITTEN NOTES makes a good
argument for being "the" solo guitar album of the new
millennium thus far. Preston uses many of the same two-handed
techniques employed by Michael Hedges. He taps on the fretboard
with both hands, giving him a pianistic range. It also gives him
a wider dynamic scope and a percussive edge when he needs it.
But while his technique will leave any acoustic guitar player
staring slack-jawed, Preston also writes some gorgeous songs to
take advantage of this extended range. "Shinkansen",
named for the Japanese bullet trains, lives up to its title with
rapid fire delivery, but he also turns symphonic on "Crossing
Open Water" with some breathtaking dynamic shifts, coloristic
effects and a gorgeous theme. This album should re-establish Preston
Reed as one of our pre-eminent string benders. If you get one
acoustic guitar album this year, Handwritten Notes is the one.
© John Diliberto 2000
4 - Skyedance - Labyrinth (Culburnie)
Just when the Celtic craze seems to be wearing thin, Skyedance
comes out with the best Celtic instrumental album in years. Skyedance
is a veteran band based in Northern California and fronted by
Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser. On LABYRINTH they take a giant
leap forward on what was already a pretty interesting sound. They
reaches lush orchestral heights in sculpting out melodies born
of uilleann pipes, flutes and fiddle. Paul Machlis, playing piano
and synthesizer fleshes out their haunting themes while Peter
Maund adds a percussive grounding that takes them from County
Donegal to County Senegal and a few stops in the Middle East.
In February I said this was the best Celtic Album of the millenium
so far. That was a bit of intentional hyperbole, but 10 months
later, it’s actually still true.
© John Diliberto 2000
5 - Axiom of Choice - Niya Yesh (Narada)
Their name is unwieldy and its reference obscure, but the music
of Axiom of Choice is an elegantly-woven fusion of Persian melodies,
Indian atmospheres and exotic vocals that heads directly to the
primal soul. Their previous album is several years old now, but
one track from it, "Valeh", still resonates with listeners.
That's the moodier, more atmospheric side they explore on "Niya
Yesh." On this CD, Axiom of Choice mixes Ramin Torkian's
flamenco/Persian quarter-tone guitar style with ambiences from
India, percussion from the middle east and the darkly alluring
voice of Mamek Khadem from Iran. Singing in Persian and with wordless
vocals, her voice laces many of these songs with a dark mystery.
She's surrounded by tambouras, cellos, frame drums, kamancheh
(spike fiddle), Buddhist chants and ney flutes creating a global
chamber music sound. Vas's Greg Ellis co-produced the album and
plays percussion. Axiom of Choice shares a lineage with Vas and
Dead Can Dance and a future in the global music bazaar.
© John Diliberto 2000
6 - Jeff Pearce - To The Shores of Heaven (Hypnos)
There aren't many artists working with the sonic purity of
Jeff Pearce. After five solo albums, he's still recording with
just electric guitar, albeit an electric guitar run through a
lot of electronic processing, loops and over-dubs. Even the percussion
on the quietly tribal "Doubt on Dark Waters" is from
a guitar. On TO THE SHORES OF HEAVEN Jeff continues his
quietly ecstatic sound, full of shimmering guitar textures and
delicately plucked melodies refracted through loops and delays.
Jeff gets an orchestra of sound from his guitar, with layered
swells, gentle pizzicatos and soaring sustains. On pieces like
"Sudden Light" he reaches the kind of of majestic contemplation
that hasn't been heard since Robert Fripp's early Frippertronics.
Fripp is an obvious touchstone for Jeff, but he doesn't have the
need to flash his virtuosity, letting the compositions and mood
dictate his sound. TO THE SHORES OF HEAVEN finds Jeff Pearce
still pointed in the right direction.
© John Diliberto 2000
7 - Rasa - Devotion (Hearts of Space)
Rasa is cellist Hans Christian, a longtime Echoes favorite,
and singer Kim Waters. They've combined for a breathtaking, contemplative
album of Indian chants and hymns, arranged for synthesizers, percussion
and a textural maze of cello, sarangi, nyckleharpe and more. It's
all topped off by the voice of Kim Waters. Her tone is serene
and ethereal, an angelic voice that wraps around these melodies
like a warm and inviting blanket.
© John Diliberto 2000
I still remember the first Stephan Micus album, ARCHAIC CONCERTS,
in 1976. With its rababs, angklungs and shakuhachis, that album
was like a relic from an ancient civilization, only the civilization
was all in Stephan Micus's head. The German musician has released
several albums since then, each one exploring a world that draws
on ancient forms and sounds without being directly related to
them. His latest is THE GARDEN OF MIRRORS and it may be his most
soulful album yet. On some tracks, he layers his voice 20 times
making him sound like a Georgian choir. On others he creates orchestras
of the imagination with percussion, steel drums, bowed sinding,
shakuhachi flutes, ney flutes and tin whistles. Both melodic and
textural, ambient and acoustic, THE GARDEN OF MIRRORS continues
Stephan Micus's tradition of creating new and exotic interior
landscapes.
© John Diliberto 2000
9 - Harold Budd - The Room (Atlantic)
Harold Budd doesn't like to call his music ambient, even though
his album PLATEAUX OF MIRROR was #2 in Brian Eno's Ambient Music
Series in the1970s. And his new album, thankfully, will do little
to remove that tag. THE ROOM is a return to form for Budd, recalling
the suspended piano tones of PLATEAUX as well as the icy atmospheres
of his late 1980 album, THE WHITE ARCADES. In fact, the album
is based on a piece called "The Room" from THE WHITE
ARCADES recording. Budd explores the most sublime melancholy on
THE ROOM, with piano melodies hanging like moss gardens over ghostly
organ drones and reverbs. Every melody is fecund with shadows,
hidden glances and hazy memories. Many musicians have adopted
Budd's sound and most of them pale in comparison once the master
starts ruminating.
© John Diliberto 2000
10 - Jonn Serrie & Gary Stroutsos -
Hidden World (Narada)
There have been many attempts at fusing Native flutes with synthesizer
arrangements, but most of them fail because the synth sounds are
pedestrian and stiff or the flute playing is rudimentary. That’s
not the case with these two virtuosos. Gary Stroutsos brings the
chops of jazz and Afro-Cuban playing to bear on a performance
that nevertheless eschews technique in deference to nuance. Jonn
Serrie, on the other hand, has been articulating a lush, space
music sound on several albums since 1987 that are noted for their
richly textured sound design. Together they carve out a contemplative
zone of slow motion space largos, touched by hints of Middle Eastern
percussion. Serrie has been here before with his 1998 Native-inspired
album, SPIRIT KEEPERS, but Stroutsos is a more gifted collaborator.
His melodies weave from an Indian snake charmers curvaceous themes
on the title track to the more classically inclined refrain of
"Earth Sky." The relentlessly slow pace of Hidden World
can wear thin over the course of the album. Even the quiet drama
of field drums and cymbals and clay pot percussion, barely breaks
the surface of Hidden World's doggedly contemplative mode.
© John Diliberto 2000
11 - Joanne Shenandoah-Peacemaker's Journey (SilverWave)
When Joanne Shenandoah's first album came out, Echoes' host
John Diliberto dubbed her the "Native American Enya".
But this Iroquois singer has evolved beyond that, and this may
be her most impressive album yet. Produced by Tom Wasinger, he
surrounds her with subtle instrumentation, gentle percussion,
lilting guitar accents, subtle synthesziers, outlining a landscape
against which Joanne casts her songs of the Iroquois peoples.
Joanne's voice is a silken smooth instrument that draws you into
her songs, even if you don't understand the language.
© John Diliberto 2000
12 - Erik Wollo - Guitar Nova (Spotted Peccary)
Guitar Nova is pretty much all guitar, but the title doesn't quite
do justice to the evocative, beautifully played and subtly woven
themes Erik Wollo has created. We know Wollo for his sweeping
synthesizer orchestrations on albums like Solstice and
Images of Light, but even those CDs largely began on the
fingers of his guitar synthesizer. On this CD, however, he keeps
it acoustic with layers acoustic guitars along with balalaika
and kora, creating a sound that seems to ring off the mountainous
landscapes of Norway where Wollo lives. He brings a laconic Ry
Cooder-like slide guitar to "Rainbows" and a bell-like
minimalism to "Hildring." Although acoustic, Wollo's
compositions and production style still suggest the same open
spaces of his electronic works, but here the melodies are etched
in crystalline cold air. We've had this album for a couple of
years on Echoes as an import. Now it's widely available in America
for the first time on the Spotted Peccary label.
© John Diliberto 2000
13 - Sorma - Mirage of the East (Pacific
Moon)
Sorma is a Japanese group trafficking in global illusion. They
take music heard across Asia, from Mongolia to India, and fuse
it with electronica rhythms and rich, synthesizer orchestrations.
They've released three albums in japan. Their third is the best,
Mirage of the East. Many of these tracks are radical re-mixes
from their previous album, which was more dance oriented.
© John Diliberto 2000
14 - Milladoiro - Auga de Maio (Green Linnet)
A brilliant album from that other Celtic land, the Gallician region
of Spain. This stands close to Skyedance's Labyrinth as
one of the best Celtic albums of the year, full of lush instrumentation
and gorgeous aires.
© John Diliberto 2000
15 - Kate Price "The Isle of Dreaming
(Omtown)
Kate Price is a Californian singer-songwriter who has been laboring
in the shadows of Loreena McKennitt for years. She plays hammered
dulcimer instead of harp, but until her new album, that was one
of the few differences in a music marked by a warm soprano voice,
a weave of Middle Eastern and Celtic elements, and long, narrative
tales. With ISLE OF DREAMING, Kate Price doesn't step out of McKennitt's
shadow, but gives it some of her own contours. Guitarist Teja
Bell, an underrated Northern California producer, works some magic
on this album, co-writing some of the songs and bringing an instrumental
lushness to Price's music. He even has her integrating an Ahmad
Jamal piece into an instrumental suite. It sure isn't jazz, but
it's the kind of touch that sets this apart from previous Kate
Price CDs. Illustrating her penchant for fantasy-laden themes,
the title track is an enchantress's call, laced by whining nyckleharpa
from Hans Christian, a ceremonial beginning to an opulent disc
that brings us sarangis and sitars, global percussionist Ian Dogole
and reed player Paul McCandless. Price tends towards the mystic
in her lyrics, without McKennitt's literary references, but they
are so beautifully arranged and sung, that they emerge as another
fabric in this music exotica.
© John Diliberto 2000
16 - Ekova - Heaven's Dust (Six Degrees)
Singing in tongues, Ekova vocalist Diedre Dubois conjures up a
world of meaning, without ever speaking a word in any language.
Joining the ranks of glossolalia-gilded divas like Lisa Gerrard,
Azam Ali of Vas and Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins, Dubois
creates her own language. Except for a few spoken phrases and
one traditional Irish tune, it's all gibberish of the most ecstatic
order. With a dusky timbre to her voice, the American born Dubois
is earthier and more sensually charged than Gerrard, Ali or Fraser,
giving an even more illusory authenticity to her folk-inspired
melodies. They sound like transmuted folk songs from the tundra
of Samiland on "Starlight in Daden," channeled Bulgarian
throat-singers from the mountaintops on "Temoine," and
entrancing Saharan desert travelers on "Ditama." No
less a part of this formula is a group that includes one musician
from Algeria and another from Iran. They pluck ouds and sling
dumbeks, and with some subtle electronic programming, create the
delirious trance-global dance on which Dubois spins her melodies.
Ekova is writing folk songs for the 21st century, sung in an Esperanto
of the soul.
© John Diliberto 2000
17 - Saul Stokes - Outfolding (Hypnos)
Saul Stokes comes from the DIY school of musicians. Inspired
by early electronic music and audio archeologists like Bill Nelson,
he constructs his own instruments out of cheap circuitry and original
control devices, inventing synthesizers that give him a unique
and atmospheric sound. Working entirely from his hand-built synthesizers,
he creates swarms of movement even in the most serene moments:
almost every sound has a cycle, an arpeggio or a twitter. Beneath
the experimentation is a deeply musical aesthetic, judiciously
editing and culling unpredictable results into unexpectedly beautiful
and organic compositions. It all results in a truly individual
sound, unlike any other electronic music.
© Jeff Towne 2000
18 - Nakai, Eaton, Clipman , Nawang - In
a Distant Place (Canyon)
R. Carlos Nakai has a knack of elevating the musicians around
him to a new level. But in the case of this collaboration, they
are already on the summit with him. Speaking of summits, this
is the second pairing of the Native American flutist Nakai and
Tibetan flutist Nawang Khechog. In a Distant Place articulates
a world between cultures. Nakai and Khechog's flutes intertwine
and morph through each other in these lyrical pieces, embraced
by the string orchestrations of William Eaton. He weaves a blend
of his hybrid guitars including harp guitar, lyre and spiral clef
guitar. Don't ask what they are, just listen to the lattice work
he provides for Nawang and Nakai. Rounding-out the group is longtime
Nakai collaborator, Will Clipman, playing ethno-grooves and percussion
colors.
© John Diliberto 2000
19 - Martin Tillman - Eastern Twin (Unitone)
Martin Tillman is the electric cellist of choice in Hollywood,
appearing on countless film scores, including Mission Impossible
II. He’s as likely to play sentimental chamber works with
pianist Michael Hoppé as wail on the Persian grooves of
Axiom of Choice. For his solo debut, he’s teamed up with
Norwegian synthesist Tom Vedvik for an album of electronica chamber
music. Vedvik orchestrates a propulsive and shifting world for
Tillman’s electric cello, full of global beats meshed in
synchronous trance with techno beats. There's a lot of illusion
going on with Eastern Twin as metal beats merge with the live
percussion of Luis Conte and Tillman's heavily processed cello
blurs with the electric guitar of Greg Arreguin. Tracks like "Odessa"
and "Ceremony" have a quiet heroism, like the last man
after the apocalypse. "Nothing on My Mind" is a piece
of rote dance-pop, but they recover quickly with the desert trance
of "Amadeus on the Nile." The album closes with "Rue
Sibelius," a beautifully poignant, over-dubbed cello solo.
© John Diliberto 2000
20 - Arc - Radio Sputnik (DiN)
Arc is a collaboration between two British space music veterans:
Mark Shreeve (from Red Shift) and Ian Boddy. This CD documents
a live performance at the 1998 Alfa-Centauri festival in the Netherlands,
and the concert setting clearly inspired the duo as they cranked
their analog synthesizers into overdrive. Shreeve's classic Moog
modular gear energizes tracks like "Arc-Angel", a classic
example of sequencers set on stun. Not purely retro, Arc builds
on the appeal of old-school sequencer music, updating it for the
21st century.
© Jeff Towne 2000
Sadly, this CD has not been released in the U.S. but you can click here to browse Ian Boddy's DiN Records.
21 - Steve Stevens - Flamenco.A.Go.Go (Ark21)
Steve Stevens provided the slash and burn guitar for Billy Idol's
"Rebel Yell" days. But this album finds him in more
unusual terrain, orchestrating a Nouveau Flamenco with techno-metal
implications. Stevens owes a debt to Ottmar Liebert's pioneering
efforts, but pumps up the volume on this mostly instrumental release.
The title track is a roaring cyber-Flamenco fury. "Our Man
in Istanbul" dances on Middle Eastern grooves in a noirish
foray with anthemic wordless vocals by Azam Ali from the group
Vas. Vas members lend their exotic vocals and global percussion
to several pieces, including the haunting chamber spaces of "Velvet
Cage." Although Stevens brings all his aggression to bear,
there's an undercurrent of exotica here, evoking Les Baxter and
Martin Denny as much as Andreas Vollenweider and Ottmar Liebert.
There have been a lot of Flamenco fusions in the last decade,
and Flamenco.A.Go.Go. provides the seeds for at least half a dozen
more.
© John Diliberto 2000
22 - Thomas Otten - Close to Silence (Higher
Octave)
Sometimes a voice comes along that is so pure and resonant, that
its simple tone is enough to move you. Thomas Otten has one of
those voices. A German contralto singer, Otten draws on many influences
for his 21st century gothic hymns. In his voice and cyclical compositions
you can hear echoes of Philip Glass's opera "Ahknaten"
which featured countertenor Paul Esswood. His combination of hybrid
languages mixed with Latin also recalls Karl Jenkins's "Adiemus,"
as do his choral backing arrangements with soprano Caroline Mutel.
Producer and keyboardist Frédéric Momont uses synthesizers
and classical quartet to surround these plaintive voices in an
enveloping atmosphere. Sometimes he brings in mildly percolating
electronica rhythms, but usually he allows the gorgeous, Gregorian
like melodies carry these hymns.
© John Diliberto 2000
23 - Mary Jane Lamond - Lan Duil (Wicklow)
Lamond is a paradoxical musician. As a singer, she is a strict
traditionalist, refusing to alter the words or melodies of the
Scottish folk tunes she unearths from sources around her home
in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. But when it comes to arrangements
and instrumentation, she's a thoroughly modern fusionist. On LAN
DUIL, Lamond and producer Phil Strong set traditional tunes amidst
enveloping ambient soundscapes, catchy pop rave-ups, and other
decidedly unconventional environments. Lamond sings it straight,
and the combination of the two worlds makes for music that breaks
free of musty historical preservation, while still respecting
its origins.
© Jeff Towne 2000
24 - Jeff Johnson & Brian Dunning -
Byzantium (Ark)
Byzantium re-teams keyboardist Jeff Johnson and Nightnoise flutist
Brian Dunning in another CD inspired by the novels of fantasy
author Stephen Lawhead. It's called BYZANTIUM and the tale follows
St. Aiden's journey from Ireland to Byzantium and in the process,
takes these modern Celtists into more Middle Eastern and Mediterranean
music terrain to good effect. Johnson and Dunning have a wonderful
sense of orchestration, lacing electric cellos, guitars, whistles,
violins, synthesizers, and of course, Brian Dunning's flutes.
"Sea Wolves" is driven by an Irish bodhran rhythm as
flutes, synthesizers and Jami Sieber's electric cello weave upwards
in an arcing spiral. Turkish wizard Omar Faruk Tekbelik appears
on several tracks, playing percussion, laying down a chanting
moan to open the title track, and a baglama solo to open "Eagle
Dream." BYZANTIUM is a beautifully produced epic by two musicians
whose sense of melodic invention flows like a Celtic breeze.
© John Diliberto 2000
25 - Ketil Bjornstad & David Darling
- Epigraphs (ECM)
Cellist David Darling and pianist Ketil Bjornstad convene for
another album of slow largos and atmospheric duets. This is a
music of spaces as much as notes, about the arc of line more than
a melody, about intuitive listening more than virtuoso soloing.
© John Diliberto 2000