KURYOKHIN, SERGEY
773791
CD
SPARROW ORATORIUM (RUSSIAN PRESSING)
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CONTEMPORARY NEW-AGE (SYNTH)A big seller here, simply due to the fact that a certain BBC radio station started playing tracks from this unique and unusual CD on a contemporary music programme, and their listeners have been coming to us in droves for their copies ever since! The composer is a multi-instrumentalist – something like a Russian version of Mike Oldfield, but his music is much wider based, genre-wise, and can be pretty unusual at times to say the least. Ranging from being almost classically operatic to jazzy and experimental in places, it can sound a little strange or even mildly discordant at times, but there’s a charm existing within its musical layers that many seem to find totally engaging. The album runs for almost forty-seven minutes and each of its 6 respective movements are reasonably melodic with a delicate, almost fragile feel to them at times. Hi-register female vocals feature alongside, electric guitars, keyboards, cellos, flutes, saxophones, trumpets, percussion and a host of other orchestral instruments, and together they have a curiously addictive effect on the brain. People will react to its character in different ways; in other words, you’ll either love it or hate it. Many will want to repeat the experience many times over, while others might well want to throw it in the bin after their first listen, but one thing is for sure – no one can argue with the fact that the music on this album is totally unique and unlike anything you will have ever encountered on a CD before.v
The opening part is instrumentally like Mike Oldfield, but in an operatic setting, with oriental voices soaring away over a rich bed of string synths, keyboards percussion and screeching electric guitar melodies, and it’s a good track to gain your interest fairly quickly. Part 2 opens with an emotionally charged, sweet female vocal, before moving into a passage trumpet work that is in total contrast to the vocal section. Then a Tomita-like whistling chorus comes in with rich cello string arrangement close behind, followed by some Oldfield-esque (with a touch on Duane Eddy thrown in) guitars and buzzing trumpet effects. It’s a crazy mixture that does seem to work, but you do start to ask yourself just how serious this musician really is at this point, wondering if he is taking the p---- with so many musical elements coming in and out of the mix at relatively short intervals? The addictive female voices, cellos and guitars return to close the eight-minute track with a passage of ‘symphonic’ meeting ‘contemporary rock’ head-on. The eleven minute 3rd movement in mainly instrumental, moving through constantly changing Mike Oldfield meets Frank Zappa like passages that are unlike any other I’ve previously encountered - Almost all of it is tuneful with the female vocals seeming to soften down to a more easily acceptable frequency level, with the passage during the closing minutes being almost lush and ballad-like in comparison to some what has gone before. There is an unusual, but somehow addictive range of melodies and arrangements at work on this album, most noticeably on the eleven minute 4th movement, where there is a distinct kind of ‘carousel music’ feel to the instrumental passages, with a memorable female chorus blending with romantic French instrumental overtones, interrupted by some slick sections of deep sax work. There is even some interesting experimentation with guitars and percussion effects on the 5th movement, sounding like the long instrumental part of King Crimson’s ‘Moonchild’ from the ‘In The Court Of The Crimson King’ album. The 6th is one of the easiest tracks to get into, being more song based, as fine organ, singing electric guitar, acoustic bass and thick cello textures providing strong instrumental support, with more of the early Oldfield sounds coming to the fore in may places. To sum up, ok, some may find the hi-register female voices difficult to get on with on this CD, but if you can get past that, there is a mountain of music to investigate in this pseudo-classical collage of styles and sounds.
Weight: 150.00 g
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