THE DIVINE ABSTRACT

Member of KNIFEWORLD and composer/arranger of MEDIÆVAL BÆBES songs goes solo. Charlie's instrumental palette spans many folk, traditional, and even Indian styles and sounds.

1. "Shringara" (3:19) opening with a very Indian sound, the entrance of Western bass and electric guitar over the sitar give this a very STEVE TIBBETTS sound and feel to it. (8/10)

2. "The Divine Abstract: Echolalia" (1:08) a nice, slow orchestral intro 3. "The Divine Abstract: The Earth's Answer" (3:26) acoustic guitar-based. Strings and winds join in fairly quickly. It has a nice PAUL WINTER or even ANT PHILLIPS feel to it. 4. "The Divine Abstract: Fearful Symmetry" (2:34) acoustic guitar opening joined by orchestral instruments. This one is more up-tempo and WILLIAM ACKERMAN/WINDHAM HILL-like. 5. "The Divine Abstract: The Western Lands" (1:58) pretty strummed acoustic guitar foundation is soon joined by and strings, horns and winds. My favorite movement of the suite. Graded as a whole: (17/20)

6. "Earth Dragon: The Golden Flower" (1:56) acoustic guitar, piano and percussion instruments are quickly joined by Chinese string and wind instruments (erhu and xiao) playing at a nice brisk walking pace. Nice film soundtrack music. 7. "Earth Dragon: An Invisible Landscape" (3:30) second movement slows it down to more contemplative or even observational--until the thick electric bass gets involved. Then it feels like it steps up into an elephantine walk--two different paces or courses, one hypervigilant, the other confident and free. 8. "Earth Dragon: Origin Of A New Being" (3:09) picked guitar chords joined by Chinese winds, strings, and electric bass and percussives gives this one a feel as if the walker/palanquin is in heavy pedestrian traffic. Piano interlude and shift gives this one a cool, PAT METHENY-like feel. My favorite piece of this suite--and one of my favorite songs on the album. Graded as a whole: (18/20)

9. "Garden Of The Mind" (6:44) a pretty neoclassical folk song not unlike a NORTH SEA RADIO ORCHESTRA, PAUL WINTER CONSORT, PHILIP GLASS, or CICADA song. (14.25/15)

10. "The 32nd Path" (6:19) based in pipa (Chinese mandolin) weaving together with several other odd instruments (including Fripp-llike electric guitar arpeggiations) in a very rich, complex tapestry, this one sounds like it could spin off into an aggressive STEVE TIBBETTS or ZHONGYU song, but instead it remains constant (though never boring) and Asian as a RYUICHI SAKAMOTO song. (9/10)

11. "In A Floating World" (3:51) another stellar composition of relaxing world music--this time with flute, bass, tuned and untuned percussion, and guitars playing the most prominent roles in the weave. (9/10)

12. "Apotheosis" (7:15) a slow paced weave of multiple instruments each playing arpeggi together establish a chord progression with more instruments (and different melody lines) added with each round of the progression. When bass line is added in the beginning of the second minute the song takes on a different feel--less minimalistic and more jazzy. (13.5/15)

Total Time ? 45:09

B/four stars; a very nice contribution of cross-cultural jazz-neoclassical fusion. A wonderfully enjoyable and pacifying listening excursion--one that I will be returning to many times over the course of my remaining years.