The music is exceptional—primarily instrumental, it sets mood and ambience without losing its own identity.  This is much more than just a variation of the soundtrack to a television series.  The music has visceral impact without being intrusive.  It slides between musical traditions without losing its own sense of identity.  One moment a flute is playing counter point to an African drum, the next a quiet acoustic guitar is trading melody with some strings, the converging lines of harmony join together and the four instruments play against each other before separating—and that’s not all.  There are other layers playing simultaneously, and yet despite the rich, complexity, the essence is grasped effortlessly.  It all sounds so simple until one tries to dissect it.

I suppose that part of the reason that I enjoyed this CD so much stems from the coherent merging of so many different traditions and styles.  I am discovering that this is one of the things that I find very compelling about new music—not change for the sake of change, but the sense of excitement when two seemingly different musical ideas are re-expressed within a new context that makes them aspects of a single piece.

In this respect the CD covers so much ground it’s almost frightening.    Christopher Hedges is a very talented individual and he displays an amazing versatility on this CD.  My experience is still too limited to be able to precisely place the “whats” and the “wheres” behind the music, but I can still hear a shift from Eastern influence to Western, or when a shade of Africa is colored by South America.  You’ll hear a lot of that sort of thing on this disk.

When responding to a visual medium, there’s always the danger of losing musical motivation—of producing a work that doesn’t stand on its own feet (this is one reason why music scores usually don’t sell as well as soundtracks).  Such an observation doesn’t in any way diminish the artistic merit of the work—in fact it takes a special skill to create music meant to augment a visual medium.  This CD, however, stands on its own feet.  I feel confident in making this claim because the series has not yet aired, and all that I’ve heard is the music. 

Like a good cup of tea, the music is simultaneously soothing and energizing, and it works equally well in the forefront of attention— during careful, concentrated listening— as well as in a secondary position as background music.  I am impressed when music can fulfill multiple roles.  And, of course, there’s more:  Triloka Records will donate a portion of the royalties on the sale of this CD to the New Heroes Foundation.  I find that in some circumstances (like this one), it enhances my enjoyment of a CD to know that the music is part of a larger context.  This is the second CD that I’ve reviewed making such a claim, and I hope that I see more of them.  It also means that since our experiences and feelings help to shape and interpret music, that my review is necessarily incomplete.

I’d like to expand upon that idea.  Much of the music was composed and performed while watching the images from the series.  Sometimes it features samples that were taken during the filming of the series.  It is one thing to hear a sample played within the context of the CD.  It is quite another to hear it played, knowing from whence it came.  I think Chris Hedges words best express the sentiment that I am trying to explain:

“People call them samples,” says Hedge. “People started discovering audio sampling and thought it was convenient and cool sounding. But that does not have much to do with what the sounds actually are, where they come from, what they mean. Like the boy calling his name on “The Voices.” The sound of that boy yelling is the sound of a human being claiming his independence for the first time after a life of bondage. That is one hundred percent real, whether you know the story or not.”

Can anything sound the same after knowing that?

-Peter Dolan