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Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra : The Scent Of Light
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专辑名称：The Scent Of Light
歌手姓名：Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra
唱片公司：Spiral Subwave Records
发行日期：2009年01月02日
专辑流派：Acoustic
专辑语言：英语
文件内容：mp3 vbr 99,1 MB
2008. The guitarist -- an itinerant mariachi with international connections -- sits in the
cell of an abandoned state prison near Santa Fe, bare feet in the rubbish left behind by the
riot in 1980 which killed 33 inmates. It's a contradictory image, where the filtered
stagelight of the artist's performance milieu has been supplanted by reality, the
indifferent light of history. A place of confinement now becomes a sanctuary, a spiritual
kiva defined by the unpolluted light of the unseen desert. A concert for ghosts becomes a
ritual purification. But what is this xeric staging? The Scent of Light, Ottmar Liebert &
Luna Negra: the best album by the band since their seminal 1990 platinum release Nouveau
Flamenco? Or could it possibly be better?
While The Scent of Light is Ottmar Liebert + Luna Negra's first studio album featuring the
band since 2004's La Semana, the recording picks up on the spacial sensibility of the recent
binaural CD Up Close: the Fritz Files by spreading the sound across the full stereo field to
create superb listening depth. While Ottmar has stepped away from the recent minimalism of
his 2007 Grammy nominated solo flamenco album One Guitar, you still get that sense of high
resolution, beautiful clarity, and a live combo dynamic. It's a layered recording, with the
multiple guitars, basses, keyboards & percussion subtly exchanging altitude, rooms,
dimensions. The excellent detailing and positioning leaves lots of space for the imagination
to roam in, so that you get a big sound, big pictures, big stories.
These ten instrumentals are narratives, ambient responses to specific places Ottmar has
visited in recent years. Each track draws a picture, and each picture tells a story. In 02,
"Streetlight" you are dropped into a gypsy fandango in Marseille, some Mediterranean evening
in 1999. Berets, sideburns, loose belts, bright eyes... a little high on absinthe, Le Fitou
or Croix du Sud beer, maybe it's like hanging with Picasso in his apache bohemian days. Or
in 05, "Morning Light", you witness the Zen dawn emerge over the rugged mountain landscape
of Kham, Tibet, a place Ottmar visited in October '06. It's music as a smell that triggers
unexpected memories, a raddling of the mind and body, a friendly abduction. India, 1978...
Granada, 1992... each track has a strong atmosphere of time and place, like the journal of
an itinerant poet or painter.
So this album is all about light & smell, the valency and texture of the senses in different
geographies, locations. Some titles are attached to places, and, although memories often
seem to shape the impression, the captured space is often inner space rather than, say, a
pleasant evening in Granada or a spectacular dawn in Tibet.
?Maybe you're 13, and you're in class and Teach is patrolling the aisles as the students
write their paragraphs on "Nature". He stops behind you, his shadow falling across your
lined page. Your heart beats hard, as you know he's hung-over, his eyes pulled into slits.
Probably fighting with the woman he lives with, she who always wears black and sometimes
reads poetry at the public library. You know this because you've heard your parents talking
about them.
The technique is outstanding, extending through the flamenco subsets of tangos and rumbas.
"Firelight" with its slicing rasqueos and flamenco funk could be Earth, Wind & Fire run
through a Spanish laundromat. "Three Days Without You" (mp3) takes you deep into the
flamenco cellar, then surfaces in a descending figure of crossing harmonics and a kick-ass
Ottmar guitar solo. No cheap 3 minute sugar placebos here, people. Tracks range from over 5
minutes (the shortest one) to almost 12 minutes (the longest). Each piece shifts and
evolves, sometimes going through several tempo and rhythm changes i.e. 06 揟he River?
features Tangos, Rumba and 6/8 rhythms, sometimes building from a haunting solo-guitar
performance to the full drive of the band, as in 03, "Silence: No More Longing".
Silence... what is silence? Amnesia? The space between something and nothing? Or is it just
a beautiful river beneath a beautiful sky somewhere... say, Utah. Perhaps it's just a
conversation between friends, a mutual internalization. 03, "Silence: No More Longing" is
certainly all of these, a marvellous piece of lyricism that starts off as an OL flamenco
soliloquy (nice slack string drone), then develops as the mellifluous sound that shuts out
all evil. This is a long track -- 10:58 -- yet it's no loosey-goosey jam where the players
step out of the que to spray noise and subvert the theme. The solos by Jon Gagan (bass) and
Stephen Duros (electric guitar) are excellent. Fans of Luna Negra are certainly familiar
with JG's fretless lead, with its impeccable phrasing and sweet glissandi. But the track is
taken to home sweet home by Stephen Duros playing his solid body Luke Custom Special (Steve
Lukather,Toto) which has a nuclear sustain like pure atomic light. Great instrumental, great
playing... and no more longing, people.
Ottmar says: "The Scent of Light was recorded between Spring of 2005 and Spring 2008. I
figured One Guitar was as minimalist as can be, 'Up Close' was the most minimalist one can
be with a band (no overdubs, no editing, etc) and it was time to make the image large again.
This album has a big sound and reminds me of The Hours between Night + Day which was
recorded in Santa Barbara in 1993. I had a lot of fun with this one too."
It's difficult to find fault with this album, either in terms of the compositions or the
playing or the mixing design. These are instrumentals that talk. The illusion of space in
three dimensions is excellent due to the instrumental layering, in particular the subtle use
of the synth for transitional coloring. The percussion is so in the pocket you forget about
it, think it's just the invisible audience working the groove. Call and response panning,
harmonic merges, choice reverbs and occasional documentary sound inserts (so subtle you
think it's a synth... if you think about it at all, as the sonic shape is all music) help
propel the drama within these sophisticated Ottmar Liebert compositions.
01 up close beginning
02 streetlight (marseille august 1999)
03 silenceno more longing (utah may 2005)
04 firelight (granada february 1992)
05 morning light (kham october 2006)
06 the river writing in water (india nov 1978)
07 candlelight (xiao rem february 2008)
08 three days without you
09 moonlight (kln april 2007)
10 up close embrace |
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发表于 2009-1-13 13:15:40
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