Customer Reviews

Music of Another Present Era

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

To think I just found out about these guys recently...silly! But yeah, if you're into fusion or jazz fusion or world...or whatever the hell you wanna call it (think Shakti)then this should be right up your alley, as it was up mine (my alley I mean). And so far this seems to be their best album (I've still got a couple albums to digest but yes, this is a superb one). For those of you who're into Hip Hop you might also notice that this album has been sampled and used in different tracks. But that's neither here nor there...I guess. Great band and this is a great album.

This is a review of the sound quality only, and I am reviewing the 2004 remaster (mine's from Polystar Jazz Library in Japan).

The sound quality here on some tracks is very bad. Tracks 3,6,&14 are definite 'Loudness War' victim (google loudness war for more info). Most tracks have limited dynamics, but on 3,6,&14 there is also clipping and a large amount of distortion. The sound really poor. Basically whoever remastered these three songs has ruined them. I mean this is a Jazz release of all things, why would anyone want to sacrifice sound quality for volume? Do you know anyone who listens to Jazz that doesn't value sound quality, even if only in a small way? or doesn't know how to operate their volume knob?

I'd recommend getting the old pre-2004 version on cd, that's what I'm going to do (through the Amazon resellers of course). I'll post a review of that disk once I get it.

Really - what is 'world music'?? It seems a dismissive/arbitrary term, like it's a different world from the one we live in. Actually, that may be relevant, considering this is a very meditative, introspective album and the world we live in nowadays is anything but. Oregon are one of my favorite ensembles - they made very intelligent, unusual music that breathed. They communicated to each other through notes, dynamics, etc. I would say anything they put out in the '70's was worth owning (can't speak for their '80's output).

The instrumentation on this one mainly consists of hand drums, tabla, sitar, acoustic guitar, piano, and oboe (no vocals). I have a hard time explaining why this is my favorite Oregon album. It seems very sensitive, very pure and natural. I can listen to it anytime, anywhere. I've been listening to it on the way to work and on the way back. I also have a hard time telling the difference between the improvised sections and the written out sections, which I think speaks highly to their abilities. Even when the music gets frenetic, there's a very calming presence guiding the whole thing. "The Silence Of A Candle" (isn't that the title? Kind of pretentious, but anyway) is absolutely Zen-like, beautiful and quite possibly my favorite track. Anyhoo, if you're looking for something not rock and not traditional, Oregon are awesome, unique, stimulating and sensual - definitely a band who should get more credit.

This is the first album of a group of musicians who had developped their careers in the classical style, recorded in 1972 to open a permanent seem. They play their instruments plus some others as alternative, as usual in the conservatories (nothing electrical of course). But their interest were also jazz and oriental ideas, so the result was a new form of fusion which obviously is not easy. Their most important issue is probably the classical way of improvising: you could figure Mozart playing jazz in some similar style. They don't dress their intimacy through full range resources because they don't fear to sound "empty". Good music is often complex and the approach means an effort; but if you surpass this first period, surely the music will go with you through many years, so it worth the patience. If you share these ideas perhaps you'll not get in panic if some experiments came out. No one could love Stravinsky's Rite of Spring or Allan Holdsworth or John McLaughlin from the first hearing, but when you know it you can obtain a great an sustainable pleasure. Fusion is most of all a search and theese professionals look so seriously for something different; maybe you like it or not, but the attitude is remarcable in an age of mere entertainment. The compositions follows the essential morphology of jazz: theme, improvisation of several instruments, theme reprise. Maybe they could do something musicaly richer if they weren't so compromised to this elementary jazz form, which they'll adopt definitively in the following albums. It's not the group of a leader but four classicaly formed musicians each one bringing the 25% of the final results. Oregon have probably better albums than his debut (it's a matter of personal taste), like Roots in the Sky or Out of the Woods; but without any doubt this one had defined the essence of their music, melting all their personal ways in the group's style.
Paradoxicaly, being complex music this album reaches the highest points in the most simple pieces: Sail, The Silence of a Candle and Naiads. And the responsable is not synthesis but a more worked composition...