Long Journey Home - Inspirational Travel Book for Adventure Seekers & Explorers | Perfect for Road Trips, Camping & Outdoor Enthusiasts

I want to describe this CD as "world music" -not because it represents an identifiable culture, but precisely because one cannot pin any ethnic label onto it. Both traditional or found and invented instruments create the sounds. They reference aural abstractions or imagined effects. What do atoms sound like? Or plankton? Or the act of remembering? It's music about the world.Some tracks do evoke the familiar. In Saskatchewan From the Train there is the bustle and rhythm of a railway; sounds gather like flocks of birds in the fields while Carla Hallett's voice swings gently like the power lines looping over them. Similarly, Night Train creates a sense of distance and passage as sounds come in and out of focus. Patterns one can see from a moving train such as fences, windows, other trains all go by at various speeds and intensities. In Eclipse of the Moon, lunar rhythms include what might be crickets, cicadas, animal voices but also unfamiliar voices, perhaps those of leaves uncurling or moth wings.Many tracks have a hypnotic, dreamlike quality. This arises partly from the quality of the sounds and voices, but also from putting familiar sounds in an unfamiliar context. A horn calls out from what sounds like a chorus of whales. A plaintive voice (I suspect a bowed carpenter's saw) wrings its figurative hands ahead of what might be marching boots.One aspect I miss personally from the collection, is a bass equivalent -something in the lower register to anchor a piece, or resonate in contrast to the more ethereal sounds. Perhaps I am just conditioned to expect this. What everyone misses is the magic of live performance; the anticipation in seeing a member of the ensemble pick up an unlikely object and then hearing its voice as well as the body language and interaction of performers. Live music is best, but the imagery this CD creates is compelling.