The Scent of Light - a Review
Pulled straight from my blog:
As I posted a couple of weeks ago, Ottmar's latest and greatest album, The Scent of Light, came out 13 days before we'd expected it to, and I posted before listening to it, still fresh with the excitement of just having found that the record, his first album with his band in four years, was even available. Well, now I have listened to it; if it's possible to wear the grooves off of an MP3, then I'm certainly doing so to these ten. For those also addicted to Ottmar's music like cocaine, or for those who read this blog for my cutting astrophysics commentary and might pick up the album, I offer my thoughts, recorded on first listen and updated after many:
Up Close: Beginning: We know it and love it. A cool intro song. In all honesty, I didn't find this song very exciting on the binaural album when we first heard it (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should have clicked the link in the last sentence), but after hearing it in its full-up glory here, something just clicked. I've actually been inspired to pick it up on guitar, as it's a very fun, light song that I can see the guitarist jamming around for ages (the transcription process is alternatively highly fulfilling or mind-bogglingly irritating). I approve.
Streetlight: The album is getting started here. Really, the feeling you get, at least on first listen, is that Up Close was a warm up; the very groove of Streetlight suggests that we are now in the album. I started the album on speakers and switched to headphones between the first song and this, and am glad I did - I've never heard an album so richly textured, and it comes out on this song. This is definitely a headphones album. The songs are very non-linear. Would be repetitive but for the amazing textures.
Silence: Well, we've only waited through three years and fifty-nine live versions of this song to finally hear it in studio. Ottmar delivers, too - at nearly 11 minutes, the longest and twistiest song of some very long and twisty songs on the record. A perfect rendition of the live favorite until four minutes in, when suddenly we are hit with an unexpected breath of newness. Then the old returns, and the two wrestle together... I do wish that the old string quartet line from the Winter 2005 tour were in this (for shame, Ottmar's taken down the MP3 of that!), that was positively breathtaking, but Jon Gagan (who composed it) plays the line on bass, so not all is lost. As a matter of fact, very very little is lost. Props to Stevo on his awesome electric guitar line, too.
Firelight: A year after I was in Granada, exactly. Ottmar sub-labels this song as being inspired by his 1992 trip to Granada. I was not blown away on first go-through, but I did write "certainly merits relisten," which it did. It's one of my favorite songs on the album (in the top 10, definitely), although I remain a bit disappointed that it never conjures up images of Granada in my mind, and when I try to make the connection as I listen to the song, I find matching the song to the city to be difficult. That's not surprising, though. Ottmar's Granada in 1992 and mine in 2007 are separated by 15 years, different people with different perceptions, different experiences, different memories, different ways of expressing those memories, and of course the city itself is sure to have changed a bit, too.
Morning Light: Stronger hints of old Ottmar here. The main rhythm guitar line here is something very special. Truly a song telling a story, as Ottmar said the songs on this album would, and the sense of that is stronger here than in older Ottmar songs. As a matter of fact, I know it's not new to this album before because I wrote just about the same thing four years ago in a review of his last band album, La Semana, on Amazon, which people apparently still find useful today....
The River: Another familiar piece. Similar to the Up Close version from last year, until the texture comes in at just the right part of the song, courtesy of Stephen Duros... As with Up Close (the song), I wasn't a huge fan of this song until hearing it on the album. Very nice melody.
Candlelight: The appropriate imagery in the title. Nice, mellow piece. The fourth of the "Light" pieces. There's an interesting structure to this album. Five pieces we've heard in some capacity before, with vast roaming melodies and changes, and five brand new pieces titled after some sort of "light", which focus much more on developing a few ideas all the way, with heavy texture and layering. Well, that explains the album title.
Three Days Without You: Possibly the crowning jewel of the album. Has a certain depth to it... Along with Up Close and The River, it's the final of the three songs on this album which we first heard last year. It was the only one I really loved then, I was absolutely blown away when I heard the Culture Court mix (which is basically a truncated version of the full song) in April, and it's got a real place in my heart now. Nice to hear some of the old bits back, though I loved the CC mix. This version feels more complete. The structure is simple, the simplest of all of the songs on the album: some playing around in tangos, then a rumba chorus, then the same (more or less) playing around in tangos, then instead of the chorus a vast, expansive, unbelievably textured ball of gorgeous.
Moonlight: Nearly impossible to listen to all of the melodies, especially when this song is in Mellow Mode, as opposed to Funky Mode. Beautiful. A wonderful, eccentric, schizophrenic romp - must be paid close attention to to get the full benefit.
Up Close: Up Close re-imagined, and a lovely way to close off the album. As is only fitting for the final song, it takes the familiar version of Up Close - where Ottmar's arpeggios would come in just as he was about to play a melody's final note - and replaces arpeggios with a second guitar's chords, allowing us to finally hear - and Ottmar to finally play - each melody's resolution. Unbelievably satisfying.
As I posted a couple of weeks ago, Ottmar's latest and greatest album, The Scent of Light, came out 13 days before we'd expected it to, and I posted before listening to it, still fresh with the excitement of just having found that the record, his first album with his band in four years, was even available. Well, now I have listened to it; if it's possible to wear the grooves off of an MP3, then I'm certainly doing so to these ten. For those also addicted to Ottmar's music like cocaine, or for those who read this blog for my cutting astrophysics commentary and might pick up the album, I offer my thoughts, recorded on first listen and updated after many:
Up Close: Beginning: We know it and love it. A cool intro song. In all honesty, I didn't find this song very exciting on the binaural album when we first heard it (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should have clicked the link in the last sentence), but after hearing it in its full-up glory here, something just clicked. I've actually been inspired to pick it up on guitar, as it's a very fun, light song that I can see the guitarist jamming around for ages (the transcription process is alternatively highly fulfilling or mind-bogglingly irritating). I approve.
Streetlight: The album is getting started here. Really, the feeling you get, at least on first listen, is that Up Close was a warm up; the very groove of Streetlight suggests that we are now in the album. I started the album on speakers and switched to headphones between the first song and this, and am glad I did - I've never heard an album so richly textured, and it comes out on this song. This is definitely a headphones album. The songs are very non-linear. Would be repetitive but for the amazing textures.
Silence: Well, we've only waited through three years and fifty-nine live versions of this song to finally hear it in studio. Ottmar delivers, too - at nearly 11 minutes, the longest and twistiest song of some very long and twisty songs on the record. A perfect rendition of the live favorite until four minutes in, when suddenly we are hit with an unexpected breath of newness. Then the old returns, and the two wrestle together... I do wish that the old string quartet line from the Winter 2005 tour were in this (for shame, Ottmar's taken down the MP3 of that!), that was positively breathtaking, but Jon Gagan (who composed it) plays the line on bass, so not all is lost. As a matter of fact, very very little is lost. Props to Stevo on his awesome electric guitar line, too.
Firelight: A year after I was in Granada, exactly. Ottmar sub-labels this song as being inspired by his 1992 trip to Granada. I was not blown away on first go-through, but I did write "certainly merits relisten," which it did. It's one of my favorite songs on the album (in the top 10, definitely), although I remain a bit disappointed that it never conjures up images of Granada in my mind, and when I try to make the connection as I listen to the song, I find matching the song to the city to be difficult. That's not surprising, though. Ottmar's Granada in 1992 and mine in 2007 are separated by 15 years, different people with different perceptions, different experiences, different memories, different ways of expressing those memories, and of course the city itself is sure to have changed a bit, too.
Morning Light: Stronger hints of old Ottmar here. The main rhythm guitar line here is something very special. Truly a song telling a story, as Ottmar said the songs on this album would, and the sense of that is stronger here than in older Ottmar songs. As a matter of fact, I know it's not new to this album before because I wrote just about the same thing four years ago in a review of his last band album, La Semana, on Amazon, which people apparently still find useful today....
The River: Another familiar piece. Similar to the Up Close version from last year, until the texture comes in at just the right part of the song, courtesy of Stephen Duros... As with Up Close (the song), I wasn't a huge fan of this song until hearing it on the album. Very nice melody.
Candlelight: The appropriate imagery in the title. Nice, mellow piece. The fourth of the "Light" pieces. There's an interesting structure to this album. Five pieces we've heard in some capacity before, with vast roaming melodies and changes, and five brand new pieces titled after some sort of "light", which focus much more on developing a few ideas all the way, with heavy texture and layering. Well, that explains the album title.
Three Days Without You: Possibly the crowning jewel of the album. Has a certain depth to it... Along with Up Close and The River, it's the final of the three songs on this album which we first heard last year. It was the only one I really loved then, I was absolutely blown away when I heard the Culture Court mix (which is basically a truncated version of the full song) in April, and it's got a real place in my heart now. Nice to hear some of the old bits back, though I loved the CC mix. This version feels more complete. The structure is simple, the simplest of all of the songs on the album: some playing around in tangos, then a rumba chorus, then the same (more or less) playing around in tangos, then instead of the chorus a vast, expansive, unbelievably textured ball of gorgeous.
Moonlight: Nearly impossible to listen to all of the melodies, especially when this song is in Mellow Mode, as opposed to Funky Mode. Beautiful. A wonderful, eccentric, schizophrenic romp - must be paid close attention to to get the full benefit.
Up Close: Up Close re-imagined, and a lovely way to close off the album. As is only fitting for the final song, it takes the familiar version of Up Close - where Ottmar's arpeggios would come in just as he was about to play a melody's final note - and replaces arpeggios with a second guitar's chords, allowing us to finally hear - and Ottmar to finally play - each melody's resolution. Unbelievably satisfying.
posted by Adam Solomon at 8:56 PM
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