Enigmatic minimalist composer Charlemagne Palestine has built quite a body of work over the course of his singular career which has earned him a cult reputation if not commercial success.
Reflecting one of Palestine’s recurring themes, his album is housed in a cover depicting a mountain of stuffed toys, and features just one track with a running time only a fraction short of an hour. And it certainly makes for one hell of a listening experience: another of his favoured inspirations, namely Jewish sacred music, provides a key influence on this deeply spiritual and highly evocative composition.
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A crawing, quavering vocal wail floats toward the heavens above a delicate humming drone that slowly, slowly rises in volume and intensity. A swirling mantra builds and swells. An exotic wind instrument pipes and trills, shrilly adding to the growing surge of sound as it turns and grows… and grows. As long and gradual build-ups go, this is immense. Thunderous percussion and a maelstrom of voices all throng into the emerging and sustained crescendo, evoking a transcendental experience
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