Christopher Adler
Epilogue For A Dark Day

I know, I may be tedious in proposing to you what appears to be yet another, perhaps even clichéd, East-West contamination, moreover by an artist about whom little or nothing is known and who is certainly not yet given the attention he deserves (at least so far). Products like this, one might say, flood the market in industrial quantities; after all, we are no longer in the '80s (or even earlier) when certain works of high intellectual value were the "new thing" of the moment, and the listener (especially the Western one) was not yet accustomed to such daring fusions. It will also be said that the great Western "researchers," from Davy Graham to the Sylvian, Hassell, and John Zorn, have said almost everything there is to say in terms of dialogue between cultures; the "unsaid," one is led to think, is inexorably inferior, in percentage, to what has already been put (with success and deserved recognition) on record. 

Nothing could be more wrong, I feel like saying; above all, that Orient that lies between India and Japan, which includes Indonesia and Indochina, remains to this day a "unicum" due to its complexity and variety of musical forms, largely (as already mentioned in my work on Steve Tibbetts) ignored even by musicologists in our parts, who would hardly be able to provide an - not exact, but not even approximate - overview of the sounds that populate Burma (I still call it that, if you allow me), Thailand, and Laos. Those who have tried can be counted on the fingers of one hand: Thailand in particular is a land very much tied to its traditions, jealously guarding a heritage that borders on the uncertain territories of mythology, in some ways inscrutable; one is fascinated by mystery, as is known, but also suggested by it. The charm of ancient Siam is precisely this: an irresistible attraction and fear at the same time.

I will not repeat the tedious historiographical process on the local music schools, a process that elsewhere (despite myself) has made my review work irreparably soporific; I merely wish to point out the release by Tzadik (in 2004, I am a bit late) of that extraordinary avant-garde work that is Christopher Adler's "Epilogue For A Dark Day"; at first glance, he is not a character that makes an impression: intellectual eyeglasses and the air of a know-it-all boring lecturer, more or less the appearance that some site users imagine for yours truly (who instead has a beard and hair down to his shoulders, but let's not digress...); and indeed, he is truly a professor, holding a Composition professorship at San Diego University, where he is making an impact with a research path that (I am not afraid to say) has very few equals: from New York to Tokyo, his name is becoming increasingly familiar to insiders and beyond, for his bizarre yet formidable ability to... combine European scholarly harmony and Thai folk music; but in a completely "heretical" and anti-linear way, faithful to an absolutely individual path. Trying to find references is unnecessary: what one hears in this work is the result of years of research (conducted on-site, of course, even more so than from behind a desk) by a Luminary who, in recent times, has set his mind on setting the entire sixth canto of the Aeneid to music for solo guitar: in short, certainly not a trivial character...

...who, among other things, plays extensively on his records, not limiting himself to the simple role of (albeit excellent) composer. And he plays, in this case, an instrument on which I must say a few words: the "KHAEN," also known as the "Lao mouth organ" (a very Western definition, this, because its pipe structure - arranged in two parallel rows - resembles that of an organ). It takes three times the breath to play it that it takes to play a sax, and to transport it one must suffer the pains of hell: the largest pipe can even reach three meters...! Today, however, smaller, much more practical models exist, like the one our protagonist plays in a video I will suggest after this review is published.

The album is a collection of compositions recorded over several years; "Three Live" and the orchestral "Pan-Lom" are live, among other things. A percussion ensemble of six performs in the typically Thai orgy of "Signals Intelligence," while elsewhere the soloist carves out long spaces for his Khaen, with hypnotic and subtly therapeutic results. Open the doors of imagination, and entire universes will reveal themselves to you: stellar music, free to reveal itself and shine wonderfully; a marvelous symphony as commentary on an oriental dusk, according to the interpretation appropriately offered by the title. The lengthy "Pan-Lom," in particular, reaches the peaks of the most majestic and rarefied grandeur, pure courtly poetry within the rooms of a regal palace; basically a suite, why not, but enriched by harmonic leaps and timbral inventions (such as the unexpected presence of a dulcimer, for example) that are incredible, and cause one to cry out in wonder. Everything is perfectly calibrated and balanced, without excesses; without excessive cerebrality, above all, a danger always lurking in such cases.

Listen, admire, enjoy...