Djam Karet - Collaborator
	Released: 1994 Label: HC Cat. No.: HC 008 Total Time: 72:33
	Reviewed by: John "Bo Bo" Bollenberg, February 2001 Djam Karet, one of America's leading progressive outfits, asked some friends and contemporary musicians to compose "incom-plete musical fragments" that were then used by Djam Karet as the basic pattern for a new composition. Together with guest musicians and longtime friends Steve Roach, Kit Watkins (of Happy the Man and Camel fame), Jeff Greinke, Walter Holland, Loren Nerell, Carl Weingarten and Marc Ander-son they produced what could be called an atmospheric, trance-inducing electronic type of album. Each of the seven "collaborators" sent in their DAT-tape with unique material on top of which Djam Karet added extra textu-res and sounds so to create this unique Collaborator. Fully digitally recorded from January to April of 1994, the album not only uses samplers and synths but also an incredible array of unusual instruments. Next to Tibetan glass crucibles, didgeridoo and ocean drum you will also hear baby toys, radio, electronic door alarm and grass from their own lawn (!?) finding their way onto this album. In a way, it's sort of a sequel to their Suspension & Displacement CD which already offered us a unique ambient feel. Compared to most of releases nowadays Collaborator is cert-ainly not over-produced. In fact. the end result offers enough open spaces for the listener to add his/her own feeling(s). Each track invokes mini-movies in your mind. My personal cinema showed pictures of endless deserts during "The Day After," the survival of the fittest in "Food Chain," 1001 Arabian nights in "Salt Road" and a unique space journey through unknown Marsian landscapes during "The Fearful Void." Collaborator is by no means a real Djam Karet album. The bottomline of the album has been written by others but the end result has surely the Djam Karet stamp on it. Lovers of ambient finesse will surely have a nice, long journey with this album! More about Collaborator: Track Listing: Solar Fire (3:16) / Gondwanaland (4:26) / The Anointing Of The Sick (6:53) / The Day After (12:31) / Foreign Lesion (4:10) / The 17th Karmapa (2:57) / Moorings (6:47) / Cliff Spirits (3:57) / Submersion (5:49) / Food Chan (8:14) / Salt Road (6:01) / The Fearful Void (6:38) Musicians: Gayle Ellett - guitars, guitar synthesizer, keyboards, samplers Henry J. Osborne - bass, keyboards, effects, stick Mike Henderson - guitar, keyboards, drum, vocal effects Guests: Marc Anderson - sampler, berimbau, percussion Jeff Greinke - keyboards, voices, processing Walter Holland - synthesizers Loren Nerell - synthesizers Steve Roach - matrix 12, sampler & processing, didgeridoo Kit Watkins - flute, sampler, synthesizer Carl Weingarten - dobro, effects Contact: Website: www.djamkaret.com Note: will open new browser window Email: info@djamkaret.com Discography No Commercial Potential (1985)   (Out-of-print) Kafka's Breakfast (1987)   (Out-of-print) The Ritual Continues (1989) Reflections in the Firepool (1989) Burning The Hard City (1991/2000) Suspension and Displacement (1991/2000) Collaborator (1994) The Devouring (1997) Still No Commerical Potential (1998) Live at Orion (1999) New Dark Age (2001) Ascension (2001) #1 (2001)   (via band only) #2 (2001)   (via band only) Afghan: Live At The Knitting Factory (2001) nbsp; (via band only) A Night For Baku (2003) Live At NEARfest 2001 (2004) No Commercial Potential (expanded) (2004) Recollection Harvest (2005)
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