Search - Andy Partridge, Peter Blegvad :: Orpheus the Lowdown

IMAGINE THAT

Kerry Leimer | Makawao, Hawaii United States | 06/13/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There seem to be some several things missing from music these days, one of which must surely be imagination. Given the sharp upturn in control and flexibility offered by the recording equipment and studios of the early 21st century, anyone working in music should be literally dumbfounded by the range of possibilities before them. Instead and more often than not, listeners get ever more of the same.Except here. "Orpheus the Lowdown" is a carefully realized and intricate combination of words, sounds and images that offers no shortage of imagination or ideas. Here we have an ideal pairing: the respective backgrounds and output of Peter Blegvad and Andy Partridge couldn't be better suited to this project.Blegvad's words, (refer to his body of solo work and, of course, Slapp Happy) are mostly presented in the form of a poetry reading and are wonderfully inventive, playful and always beautiful: "Orpheus washes his hands in tears and thus anointed calls it a day though it is night". And, as remarkable as that sentence is, the sounds which support it bring the words to a better life.The aural quality is not unlike Partridge's work with Harold Budd on "Through the hill", but instead of approaching these pieces as "songs" they are instead set in sound. Ranging from the overt (bowling percussion) to the subtle ( the ambience of a Savannah) the overall effect becomes something akin to musique concrete with an important distinction: these are not found sounds, they are clearly originated and composed to suit the language, just as the supporting images were assembled. The visual and aural pieces are both realized by taking seemingly unrelated elements and arranging them into a new, single whole. In both cases, the music and the photo-assemblages (which have a feel not unlike Man Ray's Ray-O-Grams) create a sense of strangeness, surprise and the discovery of something new out of the ordinary.What is represented here is on a completely different scale of thinking and effort when compared to your typical CD. If you've followed Blegvad or Partridge, you probably already have this: if you haven't, start now."