Larry Tyrrell - Floating Clouds
(c) (p) 1995 Moonbridge
11tks/46mins
Floating clouds aloft
Sky pilgrims and wayfarers
Echo in the wind
Hardly any words say more about Larry Tyrrell's music than these
lines of the Japanese haiku printed on the album's cover. And
in fact I could stop here. Those words are enough. How you can
explain meditation? One should just be in it.
Larry Tyrrell's music is deeply meditative. It has beauty and
peace. It is very harmonious. The sounds of Larry Tyrrell's flute
are as natural as the sound of the wind, a rustling of the leaves
or a pouring rain.
The musician plays the shakuhachi - a Japanese bamboo flute. There
are several kinds of those flutes differing by their size - a
length of shakuhachi changes according to a strict rule and each
of them has a unique timbre.
Larry Tyrrell uses different flutes brilliantly! He has lived
in Japan for many years and learned playing shakuhachi from the
famous masters Kohachiro Miyata and Katsuya Yokoyama. If it wasn't
for Larry Tyrrell's name on the cover, I would say that this si
the work of a Japanese artist, the music is so deep and penetrative.
One can feel a flight of inspiration. It creates a harmonious
environment for a listener. With the exception of the shakuhachi,
Larry Tyrrell uses synthesizers for arranging his compositions.
He performs the traditional Japanese melodies ("An Offering"
and "Road from Esashi") adapting them to the modern
sound, and also his original works ("Tree Spirit" and
"Wishing Well"), in which you can hear the musician's
inclination to improvisation.
I'd like to say that the album "Floating Clouds" has
become an unexpected and very pleasant acquaintance with the independent
American studio Moonbridge. Just the companies of that kind, uniting
West and East, contribute to transforming the planet into the
unity, a place, where each culture is unique and they all exist
together, into a place with no separating lines and where beauty
and harmony are really the values.
One listens Larry Tyrrell's music and is just together with it.
And one feels the moonlight reflected onto a lake at night. Hoarsely
cries a troubled bird. Autumn wind plays the tops of trees. A
plucked leaf whispers his farewell song...
Ensemble Giverny - Waterlilies
(c) (p) 1998 Moonbridge
19tks/62mins
When you take this album into your hands, the names of composers,
which you can see on its cover speak for themselves: Claude Debussy,
Erik Satie, Gabriel Faure, Maurice Ravel. Ensemble Giverny plays
the works of French Impressionist composers. The album "Waterlilies"
is a tribute to the creative work of Claude Monet, representing
a perfect musical accompaniment to the pictures of the great painter.
As a result, this CD is widely played in various museums (for
example, in High Museum of Art in Atlanta, or Albright-Knox Art
Gallery in Buffalo) making it possible to create a corresponding
sound environment for the visitors to the exhibits and achieving
the connection of visual sequence with sound. That is, essentially,
a new direction in art, where various genres are combined into
the new one, where a music becomes more than just a music, and
painting becomes more than just merely a painting. This is the
direction of the future, when various types of art will be integrated
into a new genre.
It is interesting, that not long ago I have listened to my favorite
collection of the music of French Impressionist composers ("The
Impressionists"), performed by the musicians of Windham Hill
Records, and it was interesting for me to compare it with "Waterlilies".
I have found, that the music of the Impressionists performed by
"Ensemble Giverny" is stricter and very "intelligent."
The album contains not only the classical works, but also modern
ones. The compositions by Deena T. Grossman are skillfully embedded
into the sequence of compositions and blend seamlessly with the
famous melodies by the Impressionists. I should add here very
aesthetic design of the album, where the fragments of the picture
"Waterlilies" by Claude Monet are used. Here in everything:
in the choice of the works, in the performing and in the album
design is felt a special refinement and a great love to the things,
which the authors of this remarkable project make.
If you wish to make something very pleasant to a dear friend,
present him (or her) with the "Waterlilies."
Serge Kozlovsky
P.S. I would like to express my gratitude to Alexander Petrov
for translation of these reviews.
