Weingarten, Carl - The Acoustic Shadow

Year of Release: 1995
Label: Multiphase
Catalog Number: 103
Format: CD
Total Time: 65:14:00

Running frantically through the jungle of Laos in an attempt to escape the enemy and reach one's predestined point of meeting at a nearby village to find one's contact and finally cross the border to Cambodia is certainly no laughing matter. Falling in love with the daughter of the resident monk in one's undercover center of activities and rest, despite its exotically romantic potential and sense of wonder, isn't either. Seeing treachery, tragedy, love, joy, fear, and the sporadic extraterrestrial vessel accompany one's mission, its end, and its consequences must doubtlessly be imprinted in one's mind as unforgettable. Listening to an album that can evoke these cinematic images with precision, conviction, and overflowing emotion, however, would make the previous happenings seem frivolously trivial, if only it weren't for the fact that they feel as if they were transpiring in the very flesh.

With The Acoustic Shadow, Carl Weingarten and crew dive headlong into a flurry of tribal activity, mysterious atmospheres, and haunting moments of tension that interact with the listener in exhausting bouts of wild emotion, only to resurface as placid contemplations of hope and then mutate into a resilient sense of wonder. Graciously playful slides dance around wondrous atmospheres in "Shaman's Blues"; violin, cello, bass, and guitar lock right onto a maddeningly intense groove that recalls desperate fleeing through the jungle on "Secret Agent"; and a sense of something having gone terribly wrong permeates a silent and unsuspecting night on the sparse percussion of "Fire In The Temple." Just remember that the hidden corners of Southeast Asia are far from being "civilized."

As in his subsequent release Blue Faith, Weingarten engages in the daunting task of marrying distant musical traditions with Western familiarity, yet he succeeds at this with such facility and scope of vision that the listener immediately becomes entranced and conjures fictitious events and storylines from the abstract narration that The Acoustic Shadow embodies. Channeling the aural impressions becomes nothing more than opening one's mind to the flowing waves of sound, which immediately begin untying the restraints of a wildly suggestive imagination. Indeed a beautiful soundtrack for a movie that doesn't even exist, except for in the listener's own mind.

Similar artists: Rhea's Obsession, Dead Can Dance, The Journey Within

Tracklisting:
In Another Year (0:57) / The Powerful Eye (1:47) / Secret Agent (3:14) / The Signals (3:27) / Petite Village (2:32) / Strangers At The Well (4:02) / Cambodian Waltz (3:37) / Daughter Of The Monk (4:31) / Dream Carefully (2:05) / Shaman's Blues (5:31) / Filipino Good-By (3:01) / Fire In The Temple (4:06) / Terrestrial Blues (1:24) / Light Years Dark Skies (4:37) / The Acoustic Shadow (7:45) / Follow Me Home (5:32) / A Promise Kept (1:28) / Katheryn Finds The Letter (5:38)

Musicians:
Carl Weingarten - guitars, dobro, ebow, slide, bass, percussion, sound design, synthesizers, fx, programming, sequencing
Mark Epstein - bass
Dan Guarldi - violin
Bruce Levin - percussion
Robert Powell - pedal steel
Joe Venegoni - percussion
Barbara Else - flutes
Kit Watkins - synthesizers, flutes
Dan Reiter - cello
Tom Saxby - stick
David Del Torto - koko and talking drum
David Finn - synthesizer
Barry Cleveland - guitar

Discography:
Submergings (1981) (w/Gale Ormiston & Phil Neon)
Delay Tactics - Out-Pop Options (1982)
Windfalls (1983) (guest app.)
Delay Tactics - Any Questions? (1984)
Living In The Distant Present (1985)
Delay Tactics - Dreaming In Colors (1986)
Laughing At Paradise (1988)
Primitive Earth (w/Walter Whitney) (1989)
Critical Path (w/Walter Whitney) (1991)
Slide Of Hand (1991)
Pandora's Garage (1992)
The Court Musicians - At The Court Of The Chera King (1993)
Redwood Melodies (1995)
The Acoustic Shadow (1995)
Silent Night (w/Kavi Alexander) (1998)
Blue Faith (2000)
Escapesilence (2002)
Hand In The Sand - A Collection 1990-2004 (2004)
Local Journeys (2005)
Invisibility (w/Forrest Fang) (2006)
Lost In The Air (2008)

Genre: Other

Origin US

Added: July 30th 2002
Reviewer: Marcelo Silveyra
Score:
Artist website: carlweingarten.blogspot.com
Hits: 3431
Language: english