Fine sound formations from the start, there is a confidence in the muscial moves but also one that retains a sense of naivity, and that's not such a bad thing. In fact it's hardly worth mentioning. Nice piece very touching and evocative, nice style. A fine figura. The title track, as always, has a lot to live up to being effectively the lynch-pin. There is a lovely mix of the simple with layers of complex wandering, but it is, after all, an Archetypal Desert, and that could mean a host of things. A very nice arrangement that captures an ancient essence well. Nice work. Parpadeo works out to be another very well-balanced foray into creative expression, all instruments have their say without ever becoming overbearing. Grey Matter, is a matter I know as much about as I 'know' about myself, that mysterious essentia of the sense of being. Brain and mind. A gentle track, that curls its way around the convolutions of said matter and tickles the sound buds into a life of their own. Synaptical configurations that will instantly marry themselves up with associations, each to our own.
Mythos, continues what seems to be the general musical feel of this album, which seems to me to be a relatively laid-back, but still active musical configuring and being chiefly instrumental, liable to a whole host of interpretations. On top of that the track called Mythos opens the gates to many worlds of such interpretations that continue to be formed and developed and used to this day. Again there are archetypes and their are subjectivities, though no ontological basis for 'truth', which I feel is the purpose of mythology, to communicate a perceived reality of a situation that may have a pattern, through an age of mankind. The Ancient Vine, kind of backs this up, carrying on the musical attitude, it develops in its own pattern and being ancient has deep roots in the collective consciousness. Something of Oldfield in the accomplishment of forming a musical track with skill and spirit. Tapping the roots of historical existence and development.
Three Sisters has more going on in it to balance of the strength of the tenor sax, a very powerful and potentially overbearing instrument. Some instruments are just that, no matter how hard the playing of them is, almost as if they have a mind of their own, an inherent strength however softly you try and play it. Also instruments, being different do have their limitations to take into consideration, and there is always a time and place. With a strong backing track and counterplay from the guitar the sax works well here, though loses none of its power. In fact finds compliment in this, and the other musical arrangements. The following track, No te Conocia, proves my point with the instruments in play, I feel. A pattern begins to emerge but it is a secret key to a compositional door that is inherently subjective and therefore beyond discussion. I need say no more, for I try to avoid repeating myself. I like the keyboard arrangement, feels like it manages to get a not in edgeways, works well with the guitar and the sax play is diverse enough to still maintain interest, though that I feel has a lot to do with the setting.
Vigil of Desire. Bearing in mind, as I have said before elsewhere, desire does not desire satisfaction. Desire desires desire, i.e. motivation. Followed by A Bestial King and more sound construction, keeping with the theme of the album. Strained captures an essence of the experiential and as with all music that has a strong theme, a necessary stretch of tolerability. As far as tapping into a collective consciousness that experience is perhaps a simple key applied to an unlocking of archetypes, but with the retaining of variability in subjectivism. Everything is pretty much epistemological, in that we only know what we know and just because we think it, does not make it 'real' per se. This review is a prime example of this, it is just a 'view'.
Piedra que Vaga, has some beautiful instrumentation to it, with flowing synths and ornamentation of guitar and a soft, slow sense of rhythm. Fractured brings in again, a sense of collectivity and with it a sense of the world as it stands as a whole. That things seem wrong and broken, becomes apparent on the surface strongly in a socio-economic manner, as well as resultingly cultural on quite a large scale. How to fix a fracture, is all about bringing it back into place and rejoining the crack that undermines the strength. That that seems to be reflected on a larger scale, appears to be evident. Winchester Cathedral is one of England's finest architectural aspirations to faith in the good. Though it has to be said, it is the spirit invested in structure that makes the structure stronger.
A parapraxis, a Freudian slip, and I would love to know what he would make of my efforts to review all this wonderful music, refers to another immense figure in the world of psychology, though his focus was differently orientated. I feel to some degree that they were all looking at the same things in their own personal ways. A nicely built creative expression and no mere 'slip of the tongue'. I have done it myself, and wondered greatly at the certitude of my opinion from a deeper, and inescapably truthful level of consciousness. And so, this considerable album of music, fairly much ends as it began and underlines the preamble (which I've just read). In it a summation of all that has gone on before it, containing necessarily as a reprise all the foregone essence and creative expression. Overall, a good album.
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