Global village theme of album: continents unite The Union
February 5, 1990
by Sander R. Wolff
Book of Alchemy, the long-awaited second release by ethnomusicologist and electronic musician Loren Nerell, is a big surprise in a small package. The only problem found with the cassette-only release is that it's not available on compact disc.
Nerell is a Long Beach musician, currently attending Cal Poly Pomona, who studied Balinese Gamelan and the microtonal compositions of Harry Partch at San Diego State University. He has experience playing piano, trumpet and orchestral tuba.
On both of Nerell's albums, especially the first, one can hear that he is Gamelan influenced. Gamelan music for the western ear is a bit strange, but really quite beautiful. The intricacy and the different lines evolve in relation to each other, and he does that very well.
There's a strong contrast between the Gamelan pieces and the drone pieces, as well, which are absolutely beautiful. It's this melodic wash that's so soothing and evolves back into the intricate patterns.
The current album, though, is less Gamelan then his first, Point of Arrival. The first piece, The World Spirit, begins with the deep resonant chanting of Tibetan monks, blending in crashing percussion and then dissolving into aboriginal didgeridoo awash with flutey synth chords.
Then real, aggressive drums played by Tony Jackson, a CSULB student, interlaced with the E-bow guitar of Gayle Ellett and the "great licks" of guitarist Mike Henderson, both of the Claremont-based progressive rock band Djam Karet. Then he takes the listener on "a musical mini-tour of the world," Nerell said.
"I think I got a snippet from every continent in the world. That's the center section." Nerell said, "You remember the voices in the middle. That was all tapes and tape loops. With the sampler you're limited to certain lengths you can use. The Prophet 2002 has a maximum of ten seconds. And some of the things I used were longer the ten seconds.
The Crucible, the second track, begins sounding like a marketplace in the heart of a dense jungle. Soon, however, one is lifted above the canopy by exquisitely ethereal notes that hang in the air while being driven by the plodding rhythms of a log drum.
The log drum is then replaced by a light trap set that brings the hanging notes into a sequence vaguely reminiscent of Jarre's Oxygen.
This is backed up by a choir of unintelligible voices calling forward a beautiful, whimsical lead line. As it ends, the listener is brought back down to the jungle floor while the music sails away.
I asked Nerell how he communicates his complex ideas to the musicians who play on the recording.
"I had a general idea what I wanted Tony to do," Nerell said. "I told him 'For the first five minutes do this, and then build up to this, and for the last part do this.' So within that framework I let them improvise."
"I didn't have a score written out for them, because if I have someone play on my music I like to have their creative input on it too. It depends upon the piece. Some started out as improvisational, and the afterwards I manipulated them."
Nerell said he chose Book of Alchemy as the title because each piece is named with a symbol from alchemical texts. "The way I was looking at it was, alchemy to me is an early form of science," Nerell said.
"The spiritual aspect enters in because everything at that time had some spiritual aspect tied to it. We're talking pre-Renaissance here, 15th or 16th century."
"Basically it's the combining of different elements to make new elements. I was kind of looking at it that way since I'm interested in making music that's a combination of new technology and old world ways, ethnic music, combined to make a new music. Talk about pretentious!" [laughs]
Side Two begins with breathy gasps and deep voices. Out of this macabre background comes the improbable harmonic throat singing of Mari Fix.
"This was the most fun piece for me to do because it was all tape loops," Nerell said. "I had her come in and sing all kinds of different stuff for about a half an hour. I took the best parts, little snippets here and there, and made these enormous tape loops."
"I had one tape loop that was thirty seconds long. At fifteen inches per second, it turned out to be about fifty feet. I had it going through my tape recorder, out of my studio into my bathroom, over the shower curtain, back into the studio, back again into the bathroom . . . it was pretty funny. It was a blast. It was the most fun I've had making a piece."
Iron Fillings, the fourth track, begins with Nerell playing shakers and gongs. They ring their way into Chuck Oken Jr, also from Djam Karet, playing slit and Indian drums in patterns too complex for most sequencers.
The next selection is a piece that was produced for the first album. It's more standard fare than the rest of the album but has the same quality and movement as the rest of the work.
Interested parties can contact Loren by writing [the old address is gone send me email instead]. He doesn't play bar mitzvahs or weddings.
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