OLIVER SCHROER
Camino
Big Dog Music
· The soundtrack to the road less travelled.
The first thing I felt while listening to Camino was space – ancient space delineated by the echoes of violin strings. The music itself wasn’t that different from what I’d heard on Canadian violinist Oliver Schroer’s last album, A Million Stars – ambient and flowing, yet tinged with an urge to dance. Now, though, the pieces are drenched in the atmosphere of the surroundings they were recorded in – the centuries-old Spanish road to Santiago de Compostela, the pilgrim’s path that Schroer, three friends, his instrument and his digital recorder walked in 2004. The music progresses as a whole rather than song-by-song, more like steps in a journey than leaps from thought to disparate thought.
If you’re like me, the photographs by Schroer’s travelling companion Peter Coffman and the liner notes in four languages won’t quite assuage the need for a film to accompany this evocative album. In the absence of that, though, just close your eyes and let the juxtaposition of ethereal yet grounded music with the worldly sounds of bells, birds, feet and cows carry you to old stone churches with more reverb than a machine could ever dream of making.
|
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.