MICHAEL GILES / JAMIE MUIR / DAVID CUNNINGHAM: GHOST DANCE (OST)

British drummer Michael Giles (b. 1942) is probably best remembered as the original King Crimson member, plus from the preceding group Giles, Giles & Fripp. Many progheads also remember the 1970 album McDonald and Giles, with the multi-instrumentalist and composer Ian McDonald, likewise from the court of the Crimson King. The following years Michael Giles worked as a session musician. He appears on albums of e.g. Kevin Ayers, Peter Sinfield, Greg Lake, Steve Winwood and Anthony Phillips. In the late 70's he wrote and recorded (as a multi- instrumentalist, with several guesting co-musicians) a solo album called Progress, which however wasn't released until 2002. That fairly recommendable album remains his only actual solo release.

This collaboration of three musicians is in every way a peculiar case: a soundtrack to "a talky avant-garde film" Ghost Dance directed by Ken McMullen in 1983. "Leonie and Pascale travel aimlessly between London and Paris, searching for the origins of ghosts that populate their psyches: from Karl Marx to Franz Kafka, from psychoanalysis to dream analysis, and even the cinema itself, no apparition is left unturned" (All Movie Guide). Also this album was for some reason released over a decade later, on the Piano label founded by David Cunningham.

Michael Giles plays drums, percussion, horns, reeds, bow and keyboards. Percussionist Jamie Muir was an official King Crimson member in 1972-73, appearing on the album Larks' Tongues in Aspic (1973). He withdrew from the music business around 1990 to devote his energies to painting. His list of instruments on this soundtrack consists of percussion, hand drums, bow and kalimba. David Cunningham (guitar, percussion and loops) is undoubtedly an unheard name for the most of us, including myself. "Specialising in studio processes, loops and treatments, Cunningham's work has ranged from pop music to gallery installations, including work for television, film, contemporary dance, and a number of collaborations with visual artists" (Discogs). Equipped with this citation concerning Cunningham -- the key words being loops and treatments --, Jamie Muir's eccentricity as a musician, and the fact that also the third musician, Giles, is primarily a percussionist, you begin to get the idea what to expect.

One relatively well known album that I'd pick up as a reference is "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" (1981) by Brian Eno and David Byrne. Talking of ghosts indeed. The music for Ghost Dance is even more percussion oriented, and more avant-garde. Happily there's at least a wide sonic variety within the 16 tracks. (I won't refer to specific tracks since I'm listening to the album whole from Youtube.)

The variety even with the percussion alone is notable. One track reminds me of the intensive section featuring African drummers in Mike Oldfield's Ommadawn. Another piece concentrates on the delicate kalimba, and the next one is thumping threateningly with some sharp horn riffs. There's also a nearly percussion-free piece featuring a ghostly, theremin-reminding sound. And so on. It is the sonic variety that saves this non-melodic 55-minute album from being an overwhelmingly tiresome task for the listener, but you need to be rather avant-minded to sincerely enjoy it. The mere King Crimson relation is surely not enough to make this oddity recommendable.