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The Sounding Board by R J Lannan |
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RJ Lannan is the reviewer for The Sounding Board. |
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| Another Kind of Silence |
| By Al Gromer Khan |
| Label: RASA Tea Time Music |
| Released 5/14/2007 |
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| Another Kind of Silence tracks |
1. I walk everywhere and I am free 
2. Where there are trees I am content
3. Ut quid Domine (repellis orationem meam, avertis faciem tuam a me)
4. One without need
5. The Jesus Crown
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6. I pity the Entrepreneur
7. Homeopathy
8. A Mahogany Chamber
9. Dalston Junction Feb. 1970
10. Fargo
11. Air Silence
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Never What You Think |
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You would never guess that someone named Al Gromer Khan has deeply planted roots in Bavaria, but then many electronic and ambient musicians were born and raised in Germany. Since the early sixties Al Gromer Khan (nee Alois Gromer) has been active in all kinds of music from acoustic and ambient to World and New Age. Taking his cues from European jazz greats and teachers of Eastern philosophy, he has carved his own niche in modern musical culture. Prodigious in the mastering of the sitar, Khan returned to Bavaria in the 1970's and began a prolific career that today encompasses the creation of more than forty albums. Another Kind of Silence is one of his better recordings for many reasons. Khan is a master of the ironic, giving the listener unexpected pleasures in his deep, sometimes brooding musical variations and his quirky titles that keep you wondering about his sources of inspiration. That is until you hear the compositions. His music has a consistent flow, like a strong, steady course of water ever going forward, yet yielding when necessary. Finally, his music is calming for the most part, but then his melodies seem to encourage creativity and provoke the thinking mind as you listen.
I Walk Everywhere and I Am Free is the first cut and it has an echoing sadness to it. It is not sad in a lonely way, but with a melancholy that is hard to shake. It is a tune of growing awareness, for once you are aware, you can cut through the mist of uncertainty.
Where There are Trees I Am Content to me is completely understandable. I am fortunate to live where trees dominate my horizon and I take pleasure from them in every season. I am in awe that something so beautiful is also so very useful. Kahn's piano-like tune with just a touch of hushed voice, warm and steady, is like the addition of water and sunlight that gives growth and freshness to everything around it.
Khan's song A Mahogany Chamber is moody, but it has a discernable force of energy to it. There are underlying eddies of power and perhaps awe in the mix. The electronic swirling of theme and subject makes me wonder if he is providing a view to a magnificent room full of books and maps with motes of dust that have freefall in the afternoon sunlight or if he is giving me that often elusive sense of sound that resides inside of a musical instrument waiting for the musician to call it forth.
Al Gromer awakens the power of the sitar on the tune Ut quid Domine, (repellus orationem, avertis faciem tuam a me). Yes, it is a title to be reckoned with and it translates to, "Something Lord has repelled my prayers and turned away your beauty from me." I took Latin forty years ago, so I may be a little rusty. Nevertheless, the gist of the music a lament for a loss of grace or loss of forgiveness. The prayer with faint inorganic voice is sad as only the lonely sitar can sing it.
Air Silence is the final cut and it is anything but silent. It is a testament perhaps that even with the absence of music or wind or the very sound of the expanding universe, there is always the sound of the heart and spirit to be heard. Indomitable and ever present, it is a force that is greater than man and heard by God.
Now that I have heard Al Gromer Khan, I can say I am a fan. With the wondrous music of Another Kind Of Silence I am encouraged to listen to his other recent works that include Negus, Radio Yoga and Indian Music.
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Rating: Good +  |
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- reviewed by RJ Lannan on 6/26/2009 |
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