Ingram Marshall - Three Penitential Visions & Hidden Voices (1990)

Ingram Marshall is another great composer of the New Albion record company, based in San Francisco. As an introduction to his musical universe, I chose this Elektra / Nonesuch recording..

Three Penitential Visions (1986) surfaced as a radio work, part of a series called "The Territory of Art", sponsored by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.

Hidden Voices (1989) draws must of its substance from recordings of ethnic vocal music from Eastern Europe, particularly the strange wailing laments heard typically at funerals. Ingram Marshall wrote: "It has been my intention not only to exploit, but to pay homage to these found voices. The sources used are from Central Russia (...), Northern Russia (...), Romania and Hungary"

Into the mix, processed electronically through digital delays and often combined with their own echoes, Marshall has stirred a live soprano, singing the old Anglican hymn "Once, in David's City".

These ambient soundscapes rely on the mixing of natural sounds, voices, synthesizers. The result is totally original and has a kind of haunting beauty...

It is impossible to compare Ingram Marshall's music with anyone else. Brian Eno could be, however, a possible challenger. 

The mood, the soundscapes, the sonic depth are unique...

link: mp3 / 320

IngMars.zip

password: olduvai

IngMars.zip

Paul Bley - Fragments (ECM, 1986)

Paul Bley is among my all times favorite jazz pianists. I just love the moods and atmospheres he creates, his lyrical and poetical playing, the way he is playing with silence, a unique musical creativity that makes all his recordings unique, either as a solo artist or within a trio or a quartet.

As an introduction to Paul Bley's musical universe, I chose this gorgeous ECM historical recording, featuring some of the finest ECM artists: John Surman (Soprano and Baritone Saxophones, Bass Clarinet), Bill Frisell (guitar), Paul Motian (drums). 

Is it still or is it only jazz ? Musical categories are not relevant here, as it happens frequently with ECM releases... 

Pure magy of studio sessions, under the inspired direction of Manfred Eicher... "Etats de grâce", where musicians can understand each other and play together without exchanging words, just following the path, listening to the sound, writing music while they play it.

Fragments of pure beauty, of deep feeling, of such an ambient soundscape that this recording does not seem to be more than 20 years old...

Did I say it already ?

ECM is my favorite record company... ECM music makes my daily soundscape for almost thirty years...

Since a long time, I wonder how I could tell Manfred Eicher and his artists how much their music matters for me...

Perhaps introducing a few of you to ECM could be an answer...

link: mp3 / 320

Fragments1.zip

Fragments2.zip

password: olduvai

Bernard Xolotl and Daniel Kobialka - Procession (1983, rip of the 1993 CD)

Okay, let's start the third week of my blog with an almost forgotten gem, by French electronic composer Bernard Xolotl (born 1951). As a teen, he discovered electronic music through the works of musique concrète French school, with composers such as Pierre Henry or Pierre Schaeffer. Pink Floyd, Klaus Schulze and Ash Ra Tempel, Riley and La Monte Young were Xolotl's main inspiration during the early seventies. In the late seventies, Xolotl, who created his studio in California,  was a forerunner of the forth-coming "new age scene" through his work with Cyrille Verdeaux (Prophecy, 1980). Procession could be considered as one of his most innovative works. He used, among others, PPG Wave 2.2, Yamaha C60, Arp Analogic synthesizer, vocoder, Korg Monopoly etc. Violin player Daniel Kobialka joined him for this project.

Procession was released as a cassette, and in 1993, was released again as a CD, with some additions and editing, by German company Erdenklang.

Procession is pure "kosmische musik", very close to Klaus Schulze's Dune and X albums, wherehe worked with cello player W. Tiepold. Procession could be a French interpretation of what the Berlin School was about... 

I rediscovered Procession during recent archeological excavations in my CDs collection... And I still love Procession's mood, sound, atmospheres, climates... Space music, with vintage synthesizers, symphonic climates mixed with a violin solo voice, analogic sequencers mirrored through echoes...

It is a very Schulzian album, and at the same times, it is also a step in the history of Californian new age music. 

It is space music at his best....

Close your eyes, you are in outer space...

links: mp3 / 320

BXPro1.zip

BXPro2.zip

password: olduvai

This blog is 2 weeks old....

- Today my blog is two weeks old...

- I know, Charlie, I know... Two weeks is already such a long time in the cyberspace... Happy celebration !!

- It is my first blog ever, Snoopy, and I have fun with it..

- Really ?

- Yes... I wonder if I had already a few visitors.. ?

- Who knows, Charlie, who knows...

- There are so few comments... I noticed that someone is plucking flowers in my garden... so, there are probably a few people at least who enjoy the flavour and the colour of the flowers in my musical garden...

- Maybe, Charlie, why not... all the tastes, even yours, are allowed...

- I don't know if my blog is okay, if it is interesting, if it is even a very little bit original...

- Who knows, Charlie, who knows.....

Night and Lights

Night and Lights (2007)

"The stars are the street lights of eternity"

Night Ragas, Volume Four (1990/1992)

This is an extract of a 16 CDs series entitled  From Dawn to Midnight, reflecting the changing moods of morning, afternoon, evening and night music through ragas. This series was produced by the Indian label "Music Today" (New Dehli).

Here are three ragas to be listened to during the night:

- Raga Naiki Kanhra: Shruti Sadolikar (vocals). Time: night.

- Raga Des: Pandit Jasraj (vocals). Time: late night.

- Raga Darbari: Amjad Ali Khan (sarod). Time: midnight and after.

These three haunting and meditative ragas need the depth of darkness to unveil all their beauty and mystery...

link: mp3 / 320

1990-NRag1.zip

1990-NNRag2.zip

password: olduvai

Somei Satoh - Mantra & Stabat Mater(1988)

Somei Satoh is a Japanese composer (b. 1947), strongly influenced by Japanese music and dance as well as by an almost 19th century sense of Romanticism, updated through extensive use of electronic instruments and processing. Shintoism and Buddhism are the underlying philosophies of Satoh's musical work.

This album offers two compositions recorded live in 1987, at the Masonic Temple in New York City.

Mantra relies on Satoh's own voice, which was layered repeatedly during the recording and processed though delays and reverbs. It is is a very meditative piece, that reminds sometimes the overtones of buddhist prayers.

Stabat Mater is a composition for soprano (Jane Thorngren) and for a capella chorus (The Pro Arte Chorale). The mood is also meditative and is dedicated to women everywhere who have suffered such loss as Maria at the foot of the cross.

These two long ambient compositions create a world of infinite spaces and suspended times...

This is a New Albion recording: New Albion is a unique label for contemporary, minimalist and experimental music and you should definitely support them, browse their online catalogue and buy the recordings at emusic.

links: mp3 /320

SS.MStM_1.zip

SS.MStM2.zip

password: olduvai

Terje Rypdal - Descendre (1980)

"Descendre", that is "going down", "cooling down", "chilling out".  The title of this album sets the mood for the listener: atmospheric music for the free flight of thoughts, feelings and memories...

Terje Rypdal (b. 1947) is a Norwegian guitarist and composer and is an icon, among others, of ECM, the innovative record company of Manfred Eicher. Terje Rypdal appears on ECM records since 1970 !

Descendre is a splendid album of ambient and floating music, for guitar and keyboards (Terje Rypdal), for trumpet and flugelhorn (Palle Mikkelborg and his unique sound and feeling) and for subtle drums and percussions (Jon Christensen, who is an emblematic ECM drummer). Intimate mood of a trio of chamber music, slow jazzy groove, aerial guitar, dialogue of the guitar with the trumpet, ghostly organ and string ensemble in the background: this music evokes landscapes of Norway, cold seas and white mountains, and a crepuscular light, after sunset or before sunrise...

The beauty and the mood of this album are intemporal...

Link: mp3 / 320

TRDesc.zip

password: olduvai

Reflections 4

Reflections 4 (2006)

"See with your eyes,

hear with your ears.

Nothing is hidden"

(Tenkei)

Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass - Passages (1990)

This beautiful album is another project of Private Music, the Peter Baumann's company in the 80's and early 90's. It is an interesting complement to Tana Mana (see below).

Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar met for the first time in Paris in 1965. Philip Glass was studying music with Nadia Boulanger, Ravi Shankar was recording a score for Chappacqua, the movie of Contard Rook. Philip Glass was earning pocket money doing notation and was assisting the sound engineer in the studio where Ravi Shankar recorded his sitar parts.

Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass spoke together, and Shankar answered many questions about Indian classical music and raga compositions.

This 1990 collaboration was a way to push this early dialogue a step forward. Passages is a rare instance of classical music reciprocity, each composer presenting thematic materials to the other as raw material from which the finished pieces were fashioned. Passages offers two Glass compositions on themes by Shankar, two Shankar compositions on themes by Glass as well as one piece from each composer completely of his own devising.

Links: mp3 / 320

RSPG1.zip

RSPG_2.zip

password: olduvai

Hector Zazou - Geologies (1989)

Hector Zazou is one of the leading French composers and producers in the field of "new musics" and electronic music. He is famous for his innovative concepts and his many collaborations with artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Dead Can Dance, David Sylvian, Jon Hassell, Brian Eno, John Cale, Harold Budd, to name but a few.

Geologies is one of his early recordings, released by the Belgian company "Crammed Discs". One could define Geologies as chamber music for electronic instruments, string quartet and various acoustic instruments (flute, guitar, trumpet, saxophones). Intimate, climatic, melodic, neoclassical and aerial at the same times, this is a beautiful ambient music with a specific French touch, with reminiscences of Satie, Debussy and others. 

The mixing and overall production are superb, and almost twenty years after its original release, this record did not loose its poetical and mysterious atmosphere...

Links: mp3 / 320

HZG1.zip

HZG2.zip

password: olduvai

Tomita - Live at Linz, 1984 "The Mind of the Universe" (1985)

On September 1984, Isao Tomita presented a live, outdoor concert on the shore of the Danube river in Linz, Austria, for an audience of 80.000 people. Through his interpretations of classical music, Tomita was attempting to describe the 15-Billion years history of the universe. He employed 13 channels of sound, including one from a helicopter 1500 feet above the river, multichannels sound systems on either side of the river, and on a ship that also carried musicians and a chorus of 100 Austrian singers. 

The live recording includes electronic performances of Holst, Ravel, Vaughan Williams, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Wagner and Beethoven (Ode to Joy from the 9th Symphony).

links: mp3 / 320

TLL1.zip

TLL2.zip

password: olduvai

Vangelis - Blade Runner Esper Edition (Bootleg, 2003)

Vangelis soundtrack plays a very important part in the atmosphere of Blade Runner, Ridley Scott's masterpiece (1982). The official Vangelis score was released only  in 1994. However, it offered only selected parts from the soundtrack. In 2007, celebrating the 25th Anniversary, a 3-CD set was released: the 1994 score was remastered and two bonus-CDs provided additional music edited by Vangelis.

There are many unofficial versions of Blade Runner's soundtrack, collecting music and ambient sounds from the whole movie, editing and ordering them in different ways. The Esper Edition is one of the most authoritative bootlegs: it provides a comprehensive soundtrack and some background music that has never been released.

The 33 tracks of the Esper Edition provide us with almost two hours of music: it is the best way to rediscover Vangelis fantastic music, haunting and melodic, with sophisticated soundscapes. 

Blade Runner's music remains today an absolute masterpiece...

link: mp3

VBREspEd1.zip

VBREspEd2.zip

password: olduvai

The Ravi Shankar Project - Tana Mana (1987)

This album was released on Private Music, the record company founded by ex-Tangerine Dream Peter Baumann in the '80s (see Sanford Ponder's post below). And Peter Baumann was one of the producers of this album, with Frank Serafine and Ravi Shankar himself. 

Tana Mana is not an album of classical Indian music, but rather an experimentation in fusion and in world music, mixing Eastern and Western sounds and traditions. Tana Mana means "body and mind", and it could be a key to discover this album where Indian sitar meets digital samplers and synthesizers. 

Among the musicians involved into this album, George Harrison (auto-harp and synthesizer), Frank Serafine (vocals), Patrick O'Hearn (bass), Al Kooper (guitar). Lakshmi Shankar is credited for vocals, while other Indian musicians are credited for sarod, sitar, tablas, tanpura and other percussions.

Tana Mana could be considered as a pioneering step in the history of world music and world beat, and it displays Ravi Shankar's unique sitar playing skill at his best as well as  his musical open-mindedness.

 

link: mp3/320

RSTM.zip

password: olduvai

Eduard Artemiev - Urga (1991)

Here is a splendid soundtrack by Eduard Artemiev for Nikita Mikhailov's movie, Urga.  Let's read these comments by the movie director: "The word "URGA" is a strange word for most people. For some, it means a hooked stick, with which Mongolian sheperds catch animals, but for the man who has for centuries lived in the infinite space called the steppes, "URGA" is the symbol of love, loneliness and power".

Urga won the "Lion d'Or" at the Mostra of Venezia in 1991.

Eduard Artemiev (b. 1937) is a famous Russian composer, who wrote many soundtracks for movies of directors such as Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrei Konchalovsky and Nikita Mikhailov. He is also an electronic music pioneer.

The Urga soundtrack was produced by Steve Hillage, who plays acoustic guitar on a few tracks. Electronic instruments are mixed with the strings of the Bolchoi Theater Orchestra. Guy Bertrand plays flutes, while Richard Galliano plays accordion.

This is a beautiful, serene and inspired music, quite symphonic at times, with haunting flute melodies and occasional voices singing Mongolian traditional songs.

The music and the movie are a poetical hymn devoted to the wide spaces of the steppes and to the nomadic tribes living there...

link: mp3 / 320

Urga.zip

password: olduvai

Jardin secret

Jardin secret (2007)

"All that's visible springs from causes intimate to you"

Dogen (1200-1253)

Tomita - Pictures at An Exhibition (1975)

As requested by imi, vintage synthesizers and an inspired version of Moussorgsky's masterpiece !

Enjoy !

link: mp3 / 320

ToPicExhib.zip

password: olduvai

Brian Eno - "An Ending (Ascent)" remixed by Leama and Moor

An Ending (Ascent) is one of my favorite songs in Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, the ambient masterpiece of Brian Eno, Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois (1983).

Two famous DJs of the dance / trance scene, Leama &  Moor (aka Andy Beardmore and Martin Smith)  remixed this song and produced an amazing result: ambient dance music, mixing together an uptempo techno rythm with a subtle enhancement of Eno's original piece.

I love very much this inspired remix, and although I admit it is a radical change from the original, it adds a great mood and feeling, and it is a floating and psychedelic song.

Here are the original Eno's piece and the remix by Leama & Moor:

ELMoor.zip

password: olduvai

Tomita - Back to the Earth - Live in New York (1988)

Isao Tomita (b. 1932) is one of the most important pioneers in the history of electronic music. He started using a Moog III Modular Synthesizer in the late '60s. Like Walter Carlos, with his famous Switched on Bach series, Tomita was interested in performing classical music scores with this new generation of musical instruments, providing the musician with an infinite range of sounds and climates. Snowflakes are dancing was his first record in 1974: Debussy was among the classical composers reinvented through synthesizers. Tomita then reinterpreted pieces by Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, Mahler and Holst, among others.

Back to the Earth is a live album recorded during a spectacular concert in New York City, on September 13, 1986, in and above the Hudson River and in the entire area of lower Manhattan, in commemoration of the centennial of the Statue of Liberty. Musicians from the United States, Soviet Union, China and Japan were brought together and performed with Tomita for a 100,000 audience.

Today, this live recording sounds as innovative and spectacular as in 1988: the sound quality, the mixing of symphonic orchestra, human choirs, Japanese and Chinese instruments is impressive. The expressiveness and spatialization of this music is amazing, as well as its overall feeling and mood.   

During the concert, Tomita played some of his favorite tracks  written by composers such as J.S. Bach, G. Mahler, R. Strauss, C. Debussy, R. Wagner, A. Dvorak and Stravinsky, among others. Tomita's arrangements are superb and inspired...

Links : mp3 / 320

Back_to_the_Earth._Live_in_New_York1.zip

Back_to_the_Earth._Live_in_New_York2.zip

password: olduvai

Colours of Fall

Colours of Fall (2007)

The body is like the tree of enlightenment,

The mind like a clear mirror stand;

Time and gain wipe it diligently,

Don't let it gather dust.

Shenxiu

Sanford Ponder - Etosha - Private music in the Land of dry water (1985)

Etosha was one of the first productions of Private Music, a new record company founded by Peter Baumann (ex-member of Tangerine Dream), in the early '80s. Private Music was devoted to new instrumental music, either electronic or acoustic, and its productions featured a bunch of new artists, such as Patrick O'Hearn, Yanni, Lucia Hwong and others. 

When Sanford Ponder was signed to Private Music, he was playing clubs in New York and creating music for dance performances and poetry readings. He was a pionneer in digital synthesis, sampling and digital recording, while driving a taxi to make a living... He became a Fairlight Computer Music Instrument operator for artists such as Kuris Blow, Psychedelic Furs, Nile Rodgers, Lou Rawls etc.

Etosha was one of the first albums to be produced  only through digital technologies, and it was also among the first records available as CDs. The Fairlight CMI was the main instrument used: as Sanford Ponder said, it was the first sampling computer music workstation. "State of the art at the time, it cost as much as a house and had a whole 8 voices with 64k (that's kilobytes !) of memory per voice".

If Etosha was an avant-garde work in the '80s, it is now almost a vintage recording, but it keeps its originality: it is a minimalist and electronic music, sometimes close to repetitive music (Etosha was mixed at Philip Glass's studio in NYC), puting the emphasis on the musical structures and loops. 

This album is one of best testimonies on the innovative part played by Private Music, as a "art oriented" label,  in the 80's  Sanford Ponder released another album on Private Music: Tigers are Brave (1986). 

link: mp3/320

SaPoEto.zip

password: olduvai

Vangelis - Beaubourg (1978)

Well, this is probably not the the most successful and popular album of Vangelis... but thirty years after its release, Beaubourg is still as innovative and surprising as it was... This music celebrates the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, also called "Centre Beaubourg", which is the place, among others,  of a great museum of contemporary art and also of IRCAM, a research center devoted to contemporary music.

With this great album, Vangelis shows the extent of his skills and of his musical universe. Abstraction, sonic painting and sculpture, multidimensional space, electro-acoustic music where melody still plays its part: it is difficult to find the right words to describe these two long compositions, unveiling an unknown side of Vangelis musical world.

This 1978 album is a superb musical and technical achievement, since it was recorded with analog synthesizers and with analog tape recorders, without computer and composition softwares...

It is avant-garde music with a human feeling and breathe, with a vision, and also with a challenge defying the usual borders between "academic musicians", belonging to a research institution such as IRCAM, and independent composers, such as Vangelis, who took the risk to offer this work to a large audience...

If you don't know this album, be bold enough to listen to it !  ;-)

link: mp3 / 320

VaBeau.zip

pass: olduvai

Loop Guru - The Third Chamber (1995)

Loop Guru is a British duo composed of Salman Gita (bass, guitars) and Jamuud (programming). They met in the London club scene, in the early '80s and started experimenting together with tape loops, worldbeat rythms and various sound collages, relying on a series of tapes recorders, DAT machines etc, then on samplers and computers. In 1995, they signed to the North-South label, and agreed to release both a "pop record" and a more experimental album on an annual basis. The Third Chamber is their first experimental album: it is ambient music at its best, mixing together natural sounds, ethereal electronics and downtempo and hypnotic rythms, in a very original mood... This abum of atmospheric music is among my favorite ones...

Link : mp3/320

LGTC.zip

password: olduvai

Reflection 3

Reflection 3 (2007)

"A painter paints pictures on canvas. 

But musicians paint their pictures on silence"

Leopold Stokowski

Bill Carrothers - After Hours (1998)

"Jazz that gives you the shiver... This guy is a phenomenon, a poet of the keyboard, with a lot of inspiration and a master in the art of the trio. He plays with grace and goes around the cliches of music and comes out with an implicit chord of pure expression. Bill Carrothers jumps from anywhere, full of stylish maturity, and the least we can say is he surprises you, he seduces you, he brings you up and you can't resist it. You have to listen to this miraculous CD, After Hours"

- Les Inrockuptibles - 

Until 1998, the pianist Bill Carrothers was known only among small circles of jazz fans, especially in New York, where he was part of the club scene. This After Hours album gave him an international exposure and it was the starting point of an amazing career... All the songs of this fantastic album were recorded live, during late night "after the club date" performances, between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM, in front of a very small audience. These improvised sessions were true miracles, with a great feeling, a romantic and intense mood in the playing, a magical interaction between the three musicians involved. Revisiting jazz standards, the musicians let the music develop itself, a music of late night or early morning, at the edge of consciousness and of dream.

This is one of my favorite jazz albums and I love to listen to it during the night, where the subtlety of Carrother's playing gets all its intensity. Shades and light, dreams and thoughts, imagination and feelings compose a kind of inner movie, and this After Hours album is its perfect soundtrack...

Bill Carrothers: Piano

Billy Peterson: Bass

Kenny Horst; Drums

links :  mp3/320

BCAfH1.zip

BCAfH2.zip

password: olduvai

J.S. Bach, Fuga a 6 voci / Cantata n°4 (Christ lag in Todesbanden" (ECM / 2003)

ECM is my favorite label. Either their jazz series or their Contemporary and classical series are pure masterpieces, with a very high standard of sound quality, musical production and artistic innovation. ECM is "the best next sound to silence", as Manfred Eicher, ECM founder and main producer, used to say.

I will probably not post whole ECM albums in this blog, but rather selected tracks that could be considered as an introduction to ECM aesthetics.  It will be like a personal compilation, in order to share with you some of the most beautiful atmospheric music produced by a record company since 1969 ! 

I would be very happy if even a very few visitors of my blog could be introduced to ECM and buy their CDs, as a way to support a truly independent and innovative record company....

To begin with, I chose some tracks from Ricercar, offering pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach and Anton Weber, played by the Münchener Kammerorchester (directed by Christoph Poppen) and The Hilliard Ensemble.

The first track is Bach's Fuga (Ricercata) a 6 voci, as orchestrated by Anton Weber. 

The six following tracks are  the Cantata N°4 "Christ lag in Todesbanden" BWV 4. The interpretation of this Cantata is sublime, so expressive and deep, with truly celestial voices. The Cantata was recorded in a München's church.

Other tracks of Ricercar (not posted here) include Anton Weber's String Quartet (1905) and Five Movementd for String Quartet op. 5. 

The contrast between Bach and Weber makes this ECM album very special and unique: it is available on the Itunes Store...

Link: mp3 / 320

JSB.zip

password: olduvai

From Here to Tranquility IV (1995)

"The meta-designer creates context not content". This Gene Youngblood's quotation in the booklet is a perfect introduction to this CD....

This is a nice ambient compilation album released on Silent Records, a San Francisco based independent label in the 90's, directed by Kim Cascone (who became a very interesting minimalist and electro-acoustic composer, still active today).

From Here to tranquility IV is sold out and out of print since many  years ... So it is a collector...and also an interesting historical testimony about the very beginning of the ambient and chill out musical trends.

The featured artists offer a great overview of  different styles of atmospheric and ambient music, with a touch of experimentation and psychedelism. 

In this compilation, we can find some rare tracks by musicians such as Alpha Wave Movement, Makyo, Mushroom Nation, Bad Data, 23 degrees, Lightwave, Michel Redolfi, Ray Guillette, So glObal and Fiorella Terenzi.

links: mp3 / 320

FHTT4.1.zip

FHTT4.2.zip

password: olduvai

Michael Brook (with Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois) - Hybrid (1985)

Michael Brook is an unclassifiable composer and producer: from U2 to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, from Brian Eno to U. Srinivas and Youssou N'Dour...

At the beginning... Michael Brook was a sound engineer and worked in Daniel Lanois' studio. He met Brian Eno in this studio perhaps during the recording and mixing sessions for Apollo: Soundtracks and Atmospheres (released in 1983).

Hybrid was Michael's first album, and featured Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois on most of the tracks and as co-producers. Hybrid could be defined as a meeting point between Eno's On Land and Jon Hassel's Fourth World Music. Michael Brook played guitar in a very specific way, with customized electronic treatments allowing a played note to be infinite. The "infinite guitar" was (and still is) the trademark of Michael Brook's sound and music: Brook shared his secrets and his equipment with The Edge, and the "infinite guitar" sound added its specific colour to U2's The Joshua Tree (1987).

Hybrid is a great album of ambient music, where the treated guitar sounds like a trumpet or a human voice, where the background sounds and textures and the percussions sound like a field recording in some remote African tribe.

It was the starting point of an amazing career and we could list some of Michael Brook's albums:

- Captive (soundtrack, with The Edge) (1986)

- Mustt Mustt (with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) (1990)

- Cobalt Blue (solo album) (1992)

- Live at the Aquarium (live recording) (1993)

- Night Song (with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) (1996)

- Sleeps with the fishes (with Pieter Nooten) (1996)

- Albino Alligator (soundtrack) (1997)

- Black Rock (with Djivan Gasparyan) (1998)

- RockPaperScissors (2006)

- Americanese (soundtrack) (2008)

etc

link: mp3/320

MBH.zip

password: olduvai