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Artist: Char-El Reviews:
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Char-El (a.k.a. Charles Thaxton)'s new 2-CD release, Heaven and Earth, is really two very different recordings in the same package. Disc one, Heaven, is classic space music in the vein of Constance Demby and Jonn Serrie, as well as newer artists like Telomere and Meg Bowles. Disc two, Earth, is a high-energy progressive electronic and prog rock workout that will jolt you, shake you, and motivate you! Talk about variety! The other item worth mentioning is how long this CD is. Disc one is sixty-seven minutes long and disc two is even longer (seventy-one minutes)! There's more than two hours of music here and, surprisingly, almost all of it is great! And trust me, not many artists could bat a thousand, so take that as praise indeed! The first disc, Heaven, begins with one of the strongest cuts on the whole album. "Into The Infinite" is more than ten minutes of classic space music, anchored by breathy synth choruses, twinkling synth bells, and billowy clouds of assorted keyboards floating in the background. Char-El could not have started the CD off better. A subtle and muted midtempo percussive element enters the song and the music begins to soar and cruise through distant star clusters and nebula, accompanied by swooshing synth effects and a high-pitched synth choral sound. If you don't flash on Novus Magnificat by Constance Demby, you're not listening very closely. "Timestream" begins very softly and may conjure up thoughts of classic Serrie, as long washes of synths slowly rise and fall, while a metronome-like bass synth line marks time in the background and gentle synth flute floats among the other music elements in the song. This is another strong cut and is followed by a short piece called "Release" which is soft and gentle, even lushly romantic at times. "Higher Realms" clocks in at almost twelve minutes and the song is another more classic space music, this time using a piano-like synth which plays a repeating ascending series of notes, while muted synth washes flow underneath. The song begins to open up and grow in drama as breathy keyboards are brought in, lending an air of healing and peace (again, evoking Demby for me). The synth washes in this song also remind me a lot of And The Stars Go With You at times. With six more songs to describe/review/detail, it would take a lot to give the music is justice, but I still have another disc to get to! Rounding out this first CD are songs like the Ray Lynch-meets-Demby title cut ("Heaven"), the bubbly and sparkly "Solar Wind," the deep calm of "Ecstasy" (sounding like it could be on a Liquid Mind release), and the closer, the delicately beautiful "Lightworlds ." Disc two starts things off with "Beyond the Farthest Star," heralded by drums and piano but the song soon shifts to a fuller prog-ish feel with soaring mellotrons (?) and a dramatic, almost heroic, fanfare. The song even fades out to the sound of triumphantly ringing bells! It's a good indication of what the second part of the CD will be like. This disc is made for cranking up and blasting so that the listener will drain every last ounce of emotion and power from the songs. Next up is "Full Circle" which introduces searing electric guitar (courtesy of Larry Clark) which is counterpointed by Char-El's melodic and restrained piano. Obviously, this song is planted firmly in prog rock territory, with its rock-ish lead lines, pounding drums, and overt rock sensibility. This is followed by the jaunty space cruiser meets prog "Earth (All One Tribe)" with swooshy synth effects balanced by piano, synth wood flute, and chugging percussion. This cut might bring Peter Buffett to mind, except that the synth effects are, at times, more "spacy" than Buffett used. Still, the tribal overtones dominate the song. Some songs are more subdued, such as the fourth cut, "Mysterious Valley." Here, more traditional synth strings and piano play out a mid tempo but somber number with some restrained drum work and percussion effects in the background. I like this song's air of, well, mystery. "Vision in the Skies," the next piece, is slower and features a fuller sound, composed of piano, drums, lush synth strings, and still other synths playing the refrain. It's a dramatic and sweeping song which may bring images of vast horizons stretching out forever. Believe it or not, there are TWELVE more songs I could describe. They include the synth-driven "Visitors" (evoking, for me, the soundtrack to The Day The Earth Stood Still, of all things!), the almost straight ahead rock of "Seasons Will Change," the wonderful almost cinematic textures to the piano-led "Santa Fe" and the thunderous "Breaking Free." Detailing all the music just on disc two alone is daunting to say the least. Looking back at Heaven and Earth as a two-CD recordings, it's superfluous to say it is really two distinctly different albums. In fact, even within each single disc, the variety is startling. Can a CD be too varied? I don't know. I don't think so. The artistic vision of each disc rings true, no matter how different individual songs are. Personally, I like the "Heaven" disc better, but that's just my taste more than anything else. "Earth" is full of some real fireworks. Obviously, it's unlikely that everyone who likes one disc will like the other. They are just too different in tone. Is Char-El being too ambitious? I don't think so. If his aim was to portray two dissimilar musical (and even philosophical) visions, he has succeeded admirably. From a compositional standpoint, just writing twenty-six (he had a co-writer on one song) songs for this album is mind-boggling. Engineering is very good through-out (I'll bet headphones on disc one yield amazing results, but mine have vanished so I can't testify to that fact). There's enough music on this album to make three or four decent albums of narrower focus. Whether or not you will enjoy it all depends on how broad your tastes are. Myself, I may never play both CDs back-to-back, but I still highly recommend this to both space music fans (Heaven) and progressive EM (Arkenstone, Buffett, Sarno, Synthuser) fans (Earth). Call me two-faced if you must, but both of me agree - this is an extremely solid CD!
This recording, although a 1996 release, just recently came my way via a heads-up from Peter Thelen at Expose magazine. Worlds Without End is a mixed-bag of assorted electronic music compositions that run the gamut from soothing space drifters to quasi-Berlin-style thumpers to classic new age style tunes. All of it is done with a done a lot style, solid engineering, and a strict attention to detail throughout. Because of the mix of EM styles on the CD, though, it's hard to pigeonhole it to one particular crowd. Some of this reminds me of Kevin Braheny (sans his EWI) at his warmest (circa The Way Home). At other times, Michael Amerlan's work on the Hearts of Space Starlight compilation is evoked. None of these or any other comparisons are meant to infer that Char-El (a.k.a. Charles Thaxton) is a copycat or is unoriginal with his music. My use of the comparisons is to show just how broadly the artist applies his brushstrokes. If he was less accomplished, this approach might prove to be disastrous. But Char-El/Thaxton knows his way around keyboards and his good taste in and respectable talent with the various subgenres of EM is shown in songs like the title cut, the uptempo "Rebirth," the spacy "Aurora," and the Jonn Serrie-meets-Kevin Kendle floater, "On The Rim." My only caveat on Worlds Without End is that deep space pilots, e.g. fans of Meg Bowles, Steve Roach, and the darker musicians out there, may find this a bit lightweight at times (meaning only as a statement of emotional content, not artistic merit). With that said, though, if melodic electronic music is your crème de la crème, this is a sure thing. |