Search - Oregon :: Our First Record

A Must-Own for Fans of Exploratory Acoustic Music

Stephen Silberman | SF, CA USA | 05/08/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This wonderful album was recorded in 1970, before
Oregon's "official" first release, "Music of
Another Present Era," but not released until 1980.
It was in print on vinyl for about five minutes,
but then disappeared. It's a marvelous record,
and a must-own for fans of Oregon's early sound or
anyone interested in acoustic music that seeks
inspiration in a wide range of cultures and
sources. There are spirited versions of songs
that would appear of later albums -- "CanyonSong," "Margueritte," and "Mary's New Bloom" --
played with such confidence and collective empathy
it's hard to believe this was the tentative first
recording by this band. One of the gems of this
album is "Aheer," a 7-minute Collin Walcott
composition, with Walcott on sitar, that stands as
one of the group's best recordings: Oregon's
ensemble sound is fully arrived on this track,
with Towner's incisive classical guitar dancing
with Walcott's sitar so deftly they sound like one
player with four hands. (Walcott, the group's
sitar player and percussionist, who died in a car
accident in the 1980s, didn't write very many
melodies, alas, but they're almost all poignant
and lovely, so discovering another major
composition by him is a major event.)

Only one track sounds dated -- the "space" track,
"Molecular," which has some studio gimmickry --
but the rest sounds as timeless as Bach. Few
groups of any kind were as articulate, subtlyemotional, and wide ranging in its influences --
and as swinging! -- as this."