The CD has a very natural presentation from the music
itself, to the performances, to the photographs and artwork. The Miho
is a museum outside of Kyoto Japan, whose design was inspired by the
traditional story of Shangri-la, from the winding river-like road, to
the tunnel you pass through, to the subsequent emergence onto a
landscape covered in blossoming cherry trees and the expansive
wilderness. The Miho was met with many restrictions in the
construction, which required most of the museum to be built below
ground, so as to not interrupt the natural ridge line of the mountains.
The liner notes provide a concise and interesting background of the
museum's creation and of Paul Winter's experience about how the album
came to be. The pictures provide a glimpse into the experience of the
Miho, with a very specific architecture designed to meld into the
landscape and incredibly lush vistas.
The album was mostly recorded in the Miho which has
an impressive acoustic space. Many of the tracks are solos and the
reverberations hang in the air like cloud. The atmosphere serves to
further outline the harmony, which add to the meditative quality of the
album.
I am not familiar with Paul Winter, and have
only heard a couple of Paul McCandless' recordings. McCandless' name
is inevitable for me since I studied oboe for many years and he is one
of the few jazz oboists, or perhaps more accurately, successful jazz
oboists. I am however not generally a fan of the saxophone, perhaps
turned off by the two-season stint I spent as a drum-major in high
school trying to get saxophone players in line. But despite my limited
tolerance, I found myself really enjoying this album. Paul Winter has a
smooth even tone, and employs gently jazzy nuances with more grace than I
expected.
I have heard a few recordings of Paul McCandless
before. He has a unique but nice reliable sound on both the oboe and
English horn. It certainly differs from my experience and preference of a more rigid classical approach, but he seems to exhibit a gentle effort, it makes me very curious about his breathing and reed technique, and what I could learn from it. His performances on the Heckelphone was the most
interesting for me as I have not heard one in performance before. It
fit the mood of the album, which features many ethnic instruments, which
though exotic, I would have to say the Heckelphone was the most unusual
instrument on this album for me; many have heard a bansuri, koto, or
the varied percussion several times as they, being the most
region-specific colors of central Asia and the far east, transcend
leitmotiv conventions to inevitably find their way into countless film
soundtracks, the second a film references anything non-western.
The solo pieces have an improvised quality to them,
though it is all glued together with the opening three-note motive,
which Winter said was inspired by the triangular patterns of the Miho's
architecture. Overall for being an east-meets-west endeavor the album
is quite tonal and accessible. There is not much in the way of a
harmonic challenge to the listener, which I think is appropriate. But
the music does not come across as particularly trite or simple. Instead
there is a naive, earnest quality to the music, that I tend to find
a-typical in music of this sort, which tends to revisit tired cliches.
There are a wide range of Asian instruments and performers, and many pieces are self-consciously titled with names like "Saxophone," or "Bansuri & Saxophone," and possibly my favorite piece on the album "Yangjin (Words of Wish Fulfillment)" titled for the singer Yangjin Lamu, a Tibetan singer and the performer of the piece.
There are a wide range of Asian instruments and performers, and many pieces are self-consciously titled with names like "Saxophone," or "Bansuri & Saxophone," and possibly my favorite piece on the album "Yangjin (Words of Wish Fulfillment)" titled for the singer Yangjin Lamu, a Tibetan singer and the performer of the piece.
Many of the pieces contain a synth pad background
which I find both appropriate and annoying. It's a string/vocal/synth
pad sound which helps establish harmony, but also hovers awash in the
background. It would have been more interesting to have a custom sample
in the space as it kind of recreates the same atmospheric quality as
the reverb, but with a bit more specificity. The pad sound seems to
harken back to earlier things I've heard from a certain kind of new-age
approach to music. I suspect that some of these musicians have been
using that sound for a long time, and perhaps it is time to find a new
sound.
Overall I am quite charmed with this album, with the
exception of one selection: I am not sure exactly how I feel about
Borodin's The Steppes of Central Asia, which seems to have been chosen
for two reasons: the showcase of the English horn, and that it has
"Asia" in the title. McCandless performs it well, and the concept of
taking an improvised solo of a classical phrase is interesting. The
washy background texture is appropriate, but a Russian's
impression of Central Asia, specifically that particular time and school
of harmonic thought, reinterpreted with a washy pad and jazz English
horn, I'm not sure if it fits with the rest of what they have
presented. Although, simultaneously, I can't think of anything more
American. Lest I am called out as a hypocrite, I feel completely the
opposite of the Bach sonata, which is performed on the Soprano Sax with
piano and cello accompaniment (though I wonder how it would have sounded if Winter had incorporated some of the other exotic instruments in lieu of, or in addition to). Perhaps there is always room for a Bach
adagio to fit anywhere, or perhaps is just a better programming choice
than Borodin.
The album also has samples of landscapes and animal
sounds. The two pieces, "The Elephant Dance" and the "Whale Raga"
incorporate recordings of the animals purring, growling, spouting and
singing, respectively. Throughout
the album there are interludes of crickets, birds, and wind. It is a
convention that could be overdone, but here it is not. You get just
enough to enjoy the moment as it bridges certain pieces together, and it
really fits as part of the natural cohesion of the overall experience.
Throughout my busy workday, I found myself looking
forward to repeated listenings of the album and the tranquility it
provided. It brings to mind the journey inspired by the story, and the
final piece Morning Sun is just the sort of piece to bring it to a
gentle close, like the meditative end of a yoga workout. Miho: Journey to the Mountain
is a cohesive meditation on folklore, nationality, nature, history,
politics, architecture, and the way the often seemingly disparate ideas
of our world can come together naturally in music.
