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This
sparkling album by longtime ambient/jazz composer Kit
Watkins is a
summer vacation in a CD, filled with warmth and charm. Watkins plays
a wide variety of instruments, acoustic, electronically synthesized,
and everywhere in between, and gives us an equally wide variety of
pieces in this album. Though it's dated 2000, this work is actually
mostly from the mid-90s, with one earlier piece,
"Kaleidoscope" from 1985.
For years Watkins has been
spinning an urbane mix of jazz, ambient, and echoes of minimalist
"classical" music. This set adds in elements from the
"East," especially the pentatonic gamelan sound of
Indonesia or the twirling harmonies of India and Arabia. There is no
attempt to create an "authentic" sound – Watkins uses
Asian music purely as inspiration for his own sonic creativity.
Metallophones, gongs, synthesized tonal percussion, and bells add a
tropical atmosphere. The earlier piece, "Kaleidoscope," is
purely electronic, though its pentatonic synthetic xylophone sound
fits in with the rest of the pieces on the album. It is eleven
minutes of bouncy sequencer transformations.
There are many fine moments in The
Unseen, for
instance a somber and rather Roach-like passage of ambient drift at
the end of track 3, "Logarhythm," and a pseudo-Miles Davis
"trumpet" solo in "Veil of Cool," played by
Watkins on an electronic sampling instrument which has more range
than any trumpet. Other tracks, such as "Windchimes" (track
7) or "Evening Mothra" (track 9) are austere, gentle, and
contemplative, leaving the hot rhythms behind in the virtual city for
a sound which is as refreshing as a clear pool of shining water.
Reviewed
by Hannah M.G. Shapero 7/01/2001 |
