Search - Peter Kowald, William Parker :: The Victoriaville Tape

Grasslands in Space

Pharoah S. Wail | Inner Space | 11/14/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If I'm deciphering the French liner notes correctly, this was recorded on 5/19/02, live at the Victo de Frenchity Whatever Festival.



Ohhh my goodness! Why it took me so long to get around to buying this one, I do not know. Well, I'm not made of money. That sums it up. It's on the short list of best albums I bought in 2007. 2 people, 2 giant violins, 4 hands, 2 bows and heaping helpings of imagination. This one defies description. It's full of natural, big, full, wooden sonorities but it's not of this earth.



Think of some of the best Hubble Telescope pictures. Pictures where colors are distinct but you can see right through them. Transparent waves of illuminated spacedust and irradiated gases. Now imagine purring lions filtered through the sonic equivalent of a funhouse mirror. Those descriptions almost do justice to about 5 minutes worth of this album. It's more than any of that, though. These are 4 journeys through possibility, not mere sound effects gimmickry. Track #2 weighs in at a monolithic 40ish minutes that never lose my attention. The other 3 tracks are around 16, 5 and 7.



Fantastically well-recorded, this is deep-consciousness nighttime music. I've listened to it a couple times during the day and somehow that doesn't work for me nearly as well. During the day, light distracts. At night, whether in total darkness or with the light of a candle flickering through my eyelids, this album becomes my world. My entire sphere of awareness is filled by the churning, pounding, ethereal space plains that Parker and Kowald create.



This isn't an album I'd ever listen to in a car, but when you have the time and place to immerse yourself in it, it'll blow your mind. You can almost feel the electric tingle of that one really good drug.

"