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The
inscription inside the CD label says, "The music is the
medicine," and this sums up the thinking and intention behind
this collaboration between Steve Roach and Mexican pre-Columbian
percussionist Jorge Reyes. We have heard this collaboration before
(along with guitarist Suso Saiz) on two powerful albums, Forgotten
Gods (1993) and Earth
Island(1994).
All of these albums, and many others by Roach, either alone or with
collaborators, form a more than decade-long musical exploration of
shamanism and the shamanistic experience. Each album illuminates a
different aspect of this primordial spiritual path - from the
Dreamtime of the Australian aborigines, to the songs sung by shamans,
to chanting and the didgeridoo, and especially the use of drums and
other percussion to induce what anthropologist Michael Harner calls
the "shamanic state of consciousness."
In 2000, Roach and his
collaborators brought us three major albums in this shamanic cycle. Vine,
Bark, and Spore
was the first, followed closely by Serpent's
Lair and then Early
Man. Serpent's
Lair, the
companion album to this one, was devoted to shamanic drumming, the
"extroverted" noisy "technique of ecstasy." But Vine,
Bark, and Spore,
though it does have rhythm and chanting, moves into the more
"introverted" aspects of shamanism, namely the voyage to
the Innerworld which is often undertaken using what Roach and the
shamans call "earth medicine," but what our own unspiritual
world simply calls "hallucinogenic drugs." Thus the title,
which comes from the natural forms from which these medicines are
derived: ayahuasca vine bark, and psilocybin (mushroom) spores.
Before readers get all nervous,
let me stress that this is NOT "drug music." In fact,
it is a way AWAY from drugs, providing a non-chemical way to
experience the shamanic voyage. "The music is the medicine."
Roach and Reyes create sonic environments which lead the imagination
into the primal world beyond culture, the inner world of the earliest
civilizations before the separation of "imaginary" and
"real" became a standard part of our mentality.
The soundworld on this album is
exceedingly rich. (I recommend listening to it on headphones if you
want to catch all the little details.) There is percussion and
rhythm, most of it rather soft. The drumming is also slow; it mostly
moves along in a contemplative and restful way, especially the
booming, almost heartbeat-like rhythms in track #4, "Night
Journey." The many rattles, sounding stones, and rainsticks
which are Roach's signature sounds are still here, along with Reyes'
Mexican percussion, including clay pot drums, and pre-Hispanic wind
instruments such as pipes and ocarina. Reyes also brings in
environmental recordings from Mexico, adding in the chirping of
crickets and birds or the sprightly recitation of a Native
storyteller speaking an Aztec/Spanish dialect. There is a didgeridoo
in one track (again #4, "Night Journey") and some chanting
vocalizations in others. Interestingly, there are none of the
familiar "Roach floating chords" here, though there is much
electronic manipulation, looping, echo, and that trademark vast reverb.
The tonal, musical elements in Vine,
Bark, and Spore
are especially well-structured. Throughout the album, the percussion
environments are tied together with a single, simple musical theme,
that of a minor third, which appears at the very beginning and is
developed throughout the album until the last track. This is carried
by an artful blend of guitar and synthesizer, often so melded that
you cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. Throughout his
recent albums, Roach seems to be using more and more guitar and
guitar-like sound to express his harmonic ideas. Here the guitar line
is played by Reyes, with electronics by Roach.
The musical continuity of the
album is re-emphasized by a repeat of the beginning of the first
piece at the beginning of track 6, "Healing Temple." In the
last track, # 7, "Gone from Here," which is also the
longest, the minor third motif we have been hearing flows out into a
beautiful, languid, drifting meditation in which not only does
the third switch to a comforting major interval, but is expanded
(both major and minor thirds) into a tone-row just short of a melody.
The guitar sound predominates here, though it is, as elsewhere,
supported by synthesizer blending. Roach is accustomed to ending his
albums on a peaceful, gentle note and this follows his pattern. It is
an exceptional example of his ability to lead the listener out of the
dark shamanic underworld, back into the light.
Reviewed
by Hannah M.G. Shapero 2/18/2001 |
