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The new CD from deep sky divers (Jon Short
and David Jones) is about as near to perfect
as an album can be. I don't mean "perfect"
as in "everyone will love it,"
because taste is subjective. What I mean
by "perfect" is how fantastic
the total package is: superb graphics, enjoyable
liner notes, polished production, and music
to die for - now, how can anyone say that's
not perfect?
Jon and David compose and record music
that is hard to categorize, which I discovered
when I reviewed their compilation album,
momentum, last year. It blends the melodicism
of adult contemporary music and "classic
new age" (circa the golden '80s of
Narada, Windham Hill, Higher Octave and
Private Music) with some of the breeziness
of non-urban smooth jazz and the electronic
keyboards of ambient and EM. Once again,
as I listened to highlands and skylands
(lower case initial letters are intentional),
I was reminded of the American duo Val Gardena.
There is the same meticulous attention to
musical atmosphere, faultless engineering,
composing in a variety of tones and textures,
using ultra-high quality keyboards, and
all of it wedded to an accessibility that
somehow walks the fine line between being
both commercial and heartfelt. This makes
the music almost virtually unclassifiable
in usual terms, which (if I can be so bold
as to say this) is probably just what Short
and Jones prefer.
highlands and skylands is a tribute album,
of sorts, to the natural beauty of Scotland's
countryside, where the two musicians now
reside (if I understand the liner notes
correctly). As such, the music is both serene
and dramatic - filled with moments of subtle
wonder and mystery, yet also energizing
celebration and immense yet understated
power. Still, the recording as a whole is
more "ambient" in feel than Momentum,
if I was pressed to the point.
"beyond the hills" signifies
what I just mentioned in that the majority
of the nine-plus minute track is flowing
keyboards and plaintive piano, evoking a
gentle glide over the "hills"
of the title. But by the song's end, we're
also treated to a propulsive excursion into
snare drum-led march-like rhythms, exultant
in nature. The progression to the more uptempo
and active section of the song is unforced,
since the track is long enough to support
it easily. The middle section, with hushed
synth choruses, piano, and plucked strings,
is mesmerizingly beautiful. "when heaven
freezes over" again opens with ambient
sensibilities, as layers of keyboards glide
smoothly in a warm undertone, soon joined
by graceful synth bells that have a wind-chime
like quality to them. The tempo is relaxed
yet also contains a hint of slow movement.
Synth cellos and basses in the background
give the sound a fullness that is refreshing.
Just before the song's end, what sounds
like an concertina (sampled, I'd guess)
contributes a sad air to the main melody,
blending in just a smidgen of Scotland-influenced
flavor to the track. The song fades directly
into a much more rousing uptempo number,
"gazing through trees," with a
pumping bass line, percolating synths (way
in the background), and nice jazzy drums,
along with an underlying series of synth
chords. This segue is classic deep sky divers,
as it reveals not just their control of
varied musical structure and rhythms, but
also how seemingly disparate elements can
flow into each other without a hint of distraction
- first rate, that!
"second childhood's end," which
may be the most ambient-sounding track on
the album, is next and it's stunning - beautiful,
a bit sad, haunting, and at seven-plus minutes,
the perfect length to stretch out its themes
without succumbing to over-repetition. A
series of refrains played on soft synth-bells
is billowed by an undercurrent of washes
that are minor key but not in such a way
as to be oppressive; the music is wistful
in the best possible sense (the music fits
its title well, as it has a childlike feel
to it, with a subtle sense of "nursery
rhyme" to the bells but an overwhelming
feel of "grown up" as well). While
I'm hard-pressed to select a favorite song
on highlands and skylands, this might be
it. It's so elegant yet so simple and uncomplicated.
"lake of menteith" is the album's
centerpoint, being at the literal middle
of the CD and also being the longest track
by far at almost seventeen minutes. It is,
simply, one of the best new age music tracks
I've heard in years. It opens with plucked
strings, lush romantic synths, and a gentle
relaxed tempo exercised through the natural
pace of the strings. Of course, the song
goes through several "movements"
rather than remain static, and each phase
is as lovely as what has come before: a
subtle and forlorn Scottish texture in one
passage accompanied by faster tempo bubbling
synths and interesting percussive effects
buried in the depth of the mix, a more EM-sounding
stretch with whistling synths and more pronounced
electronics peppered here and there, a return
to the opening melody before entering an
energizing slice of spacy EM that has kinetic
rhythms folded in gradually and that eventually
morphs into a beat-driven bassy EM-fusion
passage; this slowly builds into a pleasant
crescendo of assorted keyboards and rhythms
before calming down somewhat with two main
flute-like synth leads and relaxing into
a snippet of nature sounds accompanying
one more return to the opening melody. As
I wrote above, the track is classic new
age music that probably is closer being
a suite or at least a lengthy overture than
a single song.
There are four more tracks on the CD and
as much as I want to detail them all, I'll
leave some of the blanks for you astute
readers to fill in when you finally wise
up and buy this excellent album. However,
briefly I'll add that among the last four
cuts are a regal yet sorrowful march-like
number with hints of olden days ("timeloch")
as well as one of my favorite cuts from
their previous CD, Momentum ("raging
calm"), that is a picture-perfect blend
of ambient-like synths with a strong melodic
sensibility, thereby yielding a track that
is immensely accessible yet never overly
pop-like or too slick.
By now, you can probably tell that highlands
and skylands stands as one of the best releases
of this year. Rarely these days does an
album hit me so hard and so fast. When I
first played this recording, I knew this
was one of those rare occasions. Jon Short
and David Jones have obviously tapped into
some of the magic of the Scottish countryside,
because that's how I'd describe this music
- magical. It weaves a spell of enchantment
and wonder through its nine tracks - sometimes
subtly, other times with attention-grabbing
forcefulness. Like the countryside that
the two musicians now call home, beauty
can be found in both simplicity and in jaw-dropping
wonder. The music on highlands and skylands
is a fitting testament to the truth of that
belief. This album earns my unqualified
and most enthusiastic "highest recommendation."
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