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| Song Title | Time | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Play | 1. Sleepless Nights | 3:35 | $0.99 | |
| Play | 2. Sunface Streams Moonface | 3:39 | $0.99 | |
| Play | 3. All-Clear (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) | 9:10 | Album Only | |
| Play | 4. Interlude 1 | 1:50 | $0.99 | |
| Play | 5. North Wind | 4:46 | $0.99 | |
| Play | 6. Diamond Marimba | 1:39 | $0.99 | |
| Play | 7. Imago | 10:53 | Album Only | |
| Play | 8. Interlude 2 | 1:09 | $0.99 | |
| Play | 9. Shining Furrows | 3:51 | $0.99 | |
| Play | 10. Ritual Waking, Ritual Sleepwalking | 10:39 | Album Only | |
| Play | 11. Home | 3:36 | $0.99 | |
| Play | 12. Capping Verse | 1:33 | $0.99 |
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary.
-Gandalf, The Return of the King
The all-clear is a lie.
While the expression "all-clear" dates back to the early 20th century,1 it is perhaps most associated with the all-clear sirens that were developed during WWII and similar sirens that became pervasive during the cold war. In the UK, which faced heavy German bombardment, the all-clear siren was marked by a single, continuous tone, unlike the air raid siren which fluctuated in pitch. In many ways this seems fitting, that after the fear and danger of the bombing passed, one note would sing above the fray, clear and steady to let everyone know that all was well.
But all was not well.
The problem with the term all-clear is the "all" part. The skies may have been free from German bombers, but it was only a matter of time before the air raid sirens would sound again. Life would return to normal, but only assuming that your version of normal included knowing what to do in the event of bombs being dropped in your general direction. An all-clear is therefore wrought with tension. It may signal that danger has passed, but it cannot guarantee that it won't return.
In this sense, Christopher Campbell has masterfully titled his first album, for therein lies a tension between a beautiful sense of peace and a fear of impending doom that will not quickly fade. Even the description on Innova's website reads simply, "Apocalypse averted." This music does not use tension and relaxation to create expectation and drama for the listener, but rather seems to explore what happens when the two co-exist.2 That is not to say that there aren't varying degrees of discomfort, but rather that the music is not driven by movement from tension to relaxation. It is more about what happens when the tension won't go away.
There are a plethora of sounds in Sound the All-Clear, including a wide range of instruments homemade and from around the world, which Campbell masterfully stitches together to create his sound worlds. But it is not just the beautiful placement of sound that makes this album work so well; Campbell also has a knack for giving listeners just enough of the familiar so that they may be willing to move well beyond their comfort zone.3 It may be as simple as the emergence of a melodic figure, the sudden appearance of a recognizable chord, or even just a familiar sound after so much exploration, but it is never far away. Such grounding makes Sound the All-Clear seem more an invitation than a manifesto, and it is all the better for it.
Still, do not think for a moment that this is somehow "easy listening" music to be played in the background while you host a little cocktail party in your loft. Campbell's music remains challenging. Track 9, Shining Furrows, has more recognizable instrumentation than most others, but it is a tense flurry of activity. The parts seem completely unrelated to one another, each seems to have more energy than can be contained, and the vigor is relentless even as activity diminishes near the end. The following track, Ritual Waking, Ritual Sleeping, is much more tranquil, but often seems to sit atop a wellspring of frenetic energy that is only barely contained.
But, and this is probably the most important point I'll make about this album, Sound the All-Clear is extraordinarily compelling. One cannot sit down and listen to one or two tracks and then blithely walk away. To listen to this album is to step into a different world and become lost in sound. Block out a chunk of time for listening to Campbell's music, and listen to it a little it more loudly than is comfortable, and I think you'll be richly rewarded. If, however, you start listening knowing that you have to go pick up the kids in 15 minutes, you'll find yourself shockingly torn away from his world, completely disoriented, and justifiably disappointed. (Alternatively, your kids will become worried and feel abandoned after you decide to listen to just one more track...)
This is fantastic music, and it is worthy of your complete attention. Anything less is a disservice. Buy the CD, support Christopher Campbell, and if we're lucky he will give us even more worlds to explore in the not too distant future.
-
R. Andrew Lee is an avid performer of minimalist and postminimalist piano music and records for Irritable Hedgehog Music. Follow him on twitter: @andyleedma.
Originally published on ICareIfYouListen.com
-Gandalf, The Return of the King
The all-clear is a lie.
While the expression "all-clear" dates back to the early 20th century,1 it is perhaps most associated with the all-clear sirens that were developed during WWII and similar sirens that became pervasive during the cold war. In the UK, which faced heavy German bombardment, the all-clear siren was marked by a single, continuous tone, unlike the air raid siren which fluctuated in pitch. In many ways this seems fitting, that after the fear and danger of the bombing passed, one note would sing above the fray, clear and steady to let everyone know that all was well.
But all was not well.
The problem with the term all-clear is the "all" part. The skies may have been free from German bombers, but it was only a matter of time before the air raid sirens would sound again. Life would return to normal, but only assuming that your version of normal included knowing what to do in the event of bombs being dropped in your general direction. An all-clear is therefore wrought with tension. It may signal that danger has passed, but it cannot guarantee that it won't return.
In this sense, Christopher Campbell has masterfully titled his first album, for therein lies a tension between a beautiful sense of peace and a fear of impending doom that will not quickly fade. Even the description on Innova's website reads simply, "Apocalypse averted." This music does not use tension and relaxation to create expectation and drama for the listener, but rather seems to explore what happens when the two co-exist.2 That is not to say that there aren't varying degrees of discomfort, but rather that the music is not driven by movement from tension to relaxation. It is more about what happens when the tension won't go away.
There are a plethora of sounds in Sound the All-Clear, including a wide range of instruments homemade and from around the world, which Campbell masterfully stitches together to create his sound worlds. But it is not just the beautiful placement of sound that makes this album work so well; Campbell also has a knack for giving listeners just enough of the familiar so that they may be willing to move well beyond their comfort zone.3 It may be as simple as the emergence of a melodic figure, the sudden appearance of a recognizable chord, or even just a familiar sound after so much exploration, but it is never far away. Such grounding makes Sound the All-Clear seem more an invitation than a manifesto, and it is all the better for it.
Still, do not think for a moment that this is somehow "easy listening" music to be played in the background while you host a little cocktail party in your loft. Campbell's music remains challenging. Track 9, Shining Furrows, has more recognizable instrumentation than most others, but it is a tense flurry of activity. The parts seem completely unrelated to one another, each seems to have more energy than can be contained, and the vigor is relentless even as activity diminishes near the end. The following track, Ritual Waking, Ritual Sleeping, is much more tranquil, but often seems to sit atop a wellspring of frenetic energy that is only barely contained.
But, and this is probably the most important point I'll make about this album, Sound the All-Clear is extraordinarily compelling. One cannot sit down and listen to one or two tracks and then blithely walk away. To listen to this album is to step into a different world and become lost in sound. Block out a chunk of time for listening to Campbell's music, and listen to it a little it more loudly than is comfortable, and I think you'll be richly rewarded. If, however, you start listening knowing that you have to go pick up the kids in 15 minutes, you'll find yourself shockingly torn away from his world, completely disoriented, and justifiably disappointed. (Alternatively, your kids will become worried and feel abandoned after you decide to listen to just one more track...)
This is fantastic music, and it is worthy of your complete attention. Anything less is a disservice. Buy the CD, support Christopher Campbell, and if we're lucky he will give us even more worlds to explore in the not too distant future.
-
R. Andrew Lee is an avid performer of minimalist and postminimalist piano music and records for Irritable Hedgehog Music. Follow him on twitter: @andyleedma.
Originally published on ICareIfYouListen.com
By Mike Maguire
Format:Audio CD
Chris Campbell Sound he All-Clear Innova
This CD doesn't just fall into the itchy-scratchy school of electro-acoustic music or sound sculpture, (always masterfully produced by the French or French Canadians), but plunks into a much broader context. First of all, there is a mischievous gothic quality--like an upside down Marilyn Manson /Trent Reznor of electro-acoustics, leading to an even broader historical framework including Partch and Crumb, to finally the biggest frame including Bartok's night music or Messiaen's slow dream movements. Also, As Campbell is a filmmaker, there is a strong surreal, visual allegory going on, similar to the work of Czech film maker Jan Svankmaier or a must lighter, less threatening Hieronymus Bosch. One has a sense of a camera panning over a large fresco or canvas focusing on one hyper-zoomed section then moving to the next.
Let me give you a brief overview of what's going on with the major pieces.
1. Sleepless Night
Right away, cool polyrhythms are created by a language that I could call `hanpster treadmill' music--mechanical, motion artifacts moving at different rates. It's like a Rauschenberg painting coming alive on your wall.
2. Sunface Streams Moon Face
Here Campbell is riffing on piano strings with excellent unifying use of pitch not unlike Varese or Partch. This pitched content is always dreamlike and unassuming. over the ever present `itchy-scratchy' frame. Also, reverb, different room miking, and panning are lavishly utilized.
3. All -Clear
This piece has a more delicate balance between pitch and noise, very reminiscent of Lachenmann string quartets yet without the austerity. The music is generous, lush, kaleidoscopic full of whimsy, without indulgence. This kind of good taste and refinement cannot be taught in any composition class.
6.Diamond Marimba
The work has gorgeous timbral-rythmic clashes utilizing Webern pauses to articulate the structure. It sounds analogues to the cross-rhythms produced by the insects and rodents behind the walls. There is definitely a kind of suspense horror movie ethos in there somewhere, but never over-burdening.
7.Imago
Campbell's pitch sense is on full display: very free of the weight of the western canon -at once intuitive and thought out. Most pitches are derived from small primitive patterns and multi-pitched drones. The piece is full of a kind of innocent joy in the discovery of clashing delicacies: sorbet with French mustard or milk with Tabasco sauce.
9. Shining Furrows
This gem is darker, with greater pitch density--over what sounds like a melodic lullaby in cello octaves. It is the perfect representation for the first class of Ethnomusicology 101; exploration of struck, plucked, friction, and blown, of idiophones, membranophones, chordophones, aerophones and electrophones
10.Ritual Walking
Here he begins with a focus on the ringing of various sized bells, zooming in on the vibrations and beating against other bells. This piece is much more confined to pitch this time, with drones and plucks on top. There is a ritualistic quality to this music--the religion of struck, plucked, friction, and blown.
In conclusion, Campbell has a real compositional voice and is destined to be a major player in American music. He exploits all schools of electro-acoustic music, from environmental, found objects, electronica, drone music. and primitive pitch cells. He never clearly shows his hand in turns of influence--other than he's just another rugged Rugglian outsider, only really found in American music.
This CD doesn't just fall into the itchy-scratchy school of electro-acoustic music or sound sculpture, (always masterfully produced by the French or French Canadians), but plunks into a much broader context. First of all, there is a mischievous gothic quality--like an upside down Marilyn Manson /Trent Reznor of electro-acoustics, leading to an even broader historical framework including Partch and Crumb, to finally the biggest frame including Bartok's night music or Messiaen's slow dream movements. Also, As Campbell is a filmmaker, there is a strong surreal, visual allegory going on, similar to the work of Czech film maker Jan Svankmaier or a must lighter, less threatening Hieronymus Bosch. One has a sense of a camera panning over a large fresco or canvas focusing on one hyper-zoomed section then moving to the next.
Let me give you a brief overview of what's going on with the major pieces.
1. Sleepless Night
Right away, cool polyrhythms are created by a language that I could call `hanpster treadmill' music--mechanical, motion artifacts moving at different rates. It's like a Rauschenberg painting coming alive on your wall.
2. Sunface Streams Moon Face
Here Campbell is riffing on piano strings with excellent unifying use of pitch not unlike Varese or Partch. This pitched content is always dreamlike and unassuming. over the ever present `itchy-scratchy' frame. Also, reverb, different room miking, and panning are lavishly utilized.
3. All -Clear
This piece has a more delicate balance between pitch and noise, very reminiscent of Lachenmann string quartets yet without the austerity. The music is generous, lush, kaleidoscopic full of whimsy, without indulgence. This kind of good taste and refinement cannot be taught in any composition class.
6.Diamond Marimba
The work has gorgeous timbral-rythmic clashes utilizing Webern pauses to articulate the structure. It sounds analogues to the cross-rhythms produced by the insects and rodents behind the walls. There is definitely a kind of suspense horror movie ethos in there somewhere, but never over-burdening.
7.Imago
Campbell's pitch sense is on full display: very free of the weight of the western canon -at once intuitive and thought out. Most pitches are derived from small primitive patterns and multi-pitched drones. The piece is full of a kind of innocent joy in the discovery of clashing delicacies: sorbet with French mustard or milk with Tabasco sauce.
9. Shining Furrows
This gem is darker, with greater pitch density--over what sounds like a melodic lullaby in cello octaves. It is the perfect representation for the first class of Ethnomusicology 101; exploration of struck, plucked, friction, and blown, of idiophones, membranophones, chordophones, aerophones and electrophones
10.Ritual Walking
Here he begins with a focus on the ringing of various sized bells, zooming in on the vibrations and beating against other bells. This piece is much more confined to pitch this time, with drones and plucks on top. There is a ritualistic quality to this music--the religion of struck, plucked, friction, and blown.
In conclusion, Campbell has a real compositional voice and is destined to be a major player in American music. He exploits all schools of electro-acoustic music, from environmental, found objects, electronica, drone music. and primitive pitch cells. He never clearly shows his hand in turns of influence--other than he's just another rugged Rugglian outsider, only really found in American music.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Ginger
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Purchased the CD and enjoyed the unique sounds and moods so much that I came back and bought a vinyl copy also. This is a product for anyone who really enjoys sitting down and listening to music. Each time I listen to it, I encounter something new and more wonderful. Hope this young and very talented artist releases another album soon.
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