November 2008 Music Reviews
Akasha; Light on the Water
Akasha
Torben Thoger's arrangements invariably offer a musical experience unlike any other, and Akasha is no exception. Composed and produced in two countries, Denmark and Spain, this amazing Danish artist brought together musicians and choir members from all over the world to create an international music CD that totally defies classification.
Normally, saying that a particular music doesn't fit any known genre would open the door to calling it ‘fusion.' But while it is indeed true that Thoger fuses genres with an angelic torch, his music is innovative in a way that doesn't fit at all into the ‘fusion' category, either.
This is fairytale music, in the best Hans Christian Andersen tradition – an airy, fiery blend of symphonic rock, chill, lounge, flamenco, jazz and classical that takes you up … up … as through the ages – yes, Akashic. Ethereal yet grounded, resonating like a cello with angelic overtones, transporting us through the known and unknown universe.
Akasha, that mystical region where all is recorded … every thought, word and deed from every lifetime – past, present and future. If this sounds weirdly mystical to you, you're getting a sense of the complexity of the music. Beautiful, transportative, all encompassing. Definitely European, although I suspect a samurai would feel perfectly at home here.
Do I like it? Sometimes yes, sometimes … well, I'm an American, and a California girl at that. But yes, actually I love it. I have a taste for unlikely genius – probably the only category into which I could say this music fits. I suggest you try it when you're hungry for a new, full, surprising main course that bulges here and tiptoes there, threatening to spill majestically over the sides of the serving platter and down onto the ceiling.
—Chiwah
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Light on the Water
In the hands of a master musician, I find that the piano possesses an uncanny potential for communicating unbounded emotional depth and the vastness of eternity. Timothy Cooper is such a musician.
In Light on the Water, a collection of nineteen solo improvisational instrumental pieces inspired in part by the tragedy of 9/11 and recorded without overdubs, he exhibits a rare ability to explore the darkness of the soul without being swallowed up by it. The result is a magical blend of beautiful compositions played with wonderful sincerity and flawless expertise, the left hand rocking in a relatively regular rhythm while the right improvises to express not only the somber nature of the moment but the light beyond as well.
“I love the piano's ability to create oceanic sound—a great wash of sustained sound that can seem at once infinite and intimate, with no borders or boundaries,” he says. “Sometimes my music has no definable beginnings, no absolute endings: only waves upon waves of sound headed as if for all shores, as in the music of dreams. It is this sense of musical sustainability that I wish to explore, to create: Sound that rolls out to the edge of a horizon-less horizon and into a space too vast to fully comprehend, like countless waves tossed and lost across midnight seas.”
This is a magnificent album, the rare product of sensitive fingers and a heart laid open discovering each other on fine ivory. Some of the tracks are highly introspective (“Light on the Water,””“Autumn Tears” and”“Advancing Moon.” Others (“Rising,” for example) were improvised at the time of recording and as such come across as more whimsical, yet still in alignment with the overall peaceful, reflective tone of the album.
I recommend listening to” Light on the Water with headphones to experience first-hand the fullness of Cooper's soul that comes through in the music. Those who appreciate the finest in piano are sure to discover new treasures to with each listening.
Note: The impeccable quality of Cooper's music becomes even more stunning when you realize that composing and playing the piano are only two of the many ways in which Cooper finds artistic expression. A true'‘renaissance man' committed to exploring new vistas into thought-provoking subjects, he is also a novelist, photographer and filmmaker of some repute. His first novel, World One , presented a view on nuclear war that allowed “a happy ending when the entire planet finally learns to live together in peace”; his second, 2008 , is comedic in tone, showcasing Jesus coming back and running for President. His films include documentaries on human rights (a cause he champions as head of Washington D.C.'s Worldrights organization) and his photography is set up “to symbolize the dramatic tension between consumerism and humanism, and the diminishing of individualism.”
—Chiwah
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