 Kitaro As improbable as it sounds, this album plugs me into my high school experience more directly than perhaps any other CD, including the various and sundry "rebellious" heavy metal and classic rock albums I subjected myself to back then. Sure, I rocked out in my room to "Locomotive Breath" or "Rockin' Down the Highway" just like anyone, but when push comes to shove, for some reason, the music I was most genuinely into in high school was probably new age. This will be a mystery for me to spend years of therapy trying to sort out. I partially blame long-dead CD Review magazine for compelling me to explore music far beyond my social standing and age group. How was I to know I wasn't a Yuppie audiophile? Well, the good side of this situation is I never lost the ability to keep an open mind to music, and that includes, to this day, Kitaro. Of the many new age CDs I've owned in my time (and the majority of them were purchased ten years ago, with maybe one or two purchased in the ensuing years), Silver Cloud is the one I return to without shame. My Mannheim Steamroller discs have long since made their way to the used CD bins, but this new age masterpiece has always hung around somewhere … for a brief period, in my "to sell or not to sell" box, but it's always stayed with me. Putting it on now for the first time in probably three or four years, I am getting wispy and nostalgic for the 80s, when new age was actually cutting edge in some ways. Flash forward to the 90s electronica trend and you see that it's coming as much from the new age genre as from rock. If anything, people just started making uptempo new age music, rather than making new agey rock. New age, itself, has always been more of a marketing term than a style, anyway. Am I apologizing? No way. A lot of new age music is utter, complete bullshit. I'd go so far as to say the vast majority of new age music is pathetic nonsensical bullshit, but that the few great new age albums rank among the best albums ever. Will time bear this notion out? I don't know, a decade of listening to this CD has not diminished any of its power for me. As I understand it, Kitaro was something of a cult figure for a number of years, composing these spiritual synthesizer records from his house at the base of Mount Fuji … until Geffen Records in America "discovered" him and signed him to a lucrative contract, which formed the basis of Kitaro's current would-be musical empire. From 1979 to 1986, he pretty much created his own style of music: very slow, very contemplative, highly melodic and extremely simple, full of high-pitched synths sort of emulating Japanese flute music. The albums he made during this time, I believe to be mostly great, and the ones made after being signed, almost all crap. Few artists have demonstrated such a noticeably dramatic shift between purity of intent and obvious sell-out maneuvering almost immediately upon being signed. Looking at the Kitaro section of any current record store, you will find almost none of his "real" albums, but rather the hodgepodge "world music"-slash-"spiritual healing" crap he's been doing ever since he realized the money he could make. The wince-factor is high on almosty everything Kitaro has done since 1987, with particular anti-props going to the Christmas album Peace on Earth. A Kitaro Christmas album – now that's sincere. But the "real" albums – Silver Cloud, Astral Voyage, Millennia, India, Asia, Toward the West, Full Moon Story, perhaps Silk Road – these are new age (a/k/a "contemporary instrumental") masterpieces. Are they cheesy? Probably. But are they engaging? Completely. And the punchline? They're out of print. Geffen issued these on CD in 1986 to celebrate Kitaro's signing to the label and show the world what he'd been doing all those years, but good luck finding them now. I'm still kicking myself for unloading a few of them in the great CD Purges of the early 90s. Oh well, about Silver Cloud. I think the album was recorded in 1983 (pinpointing anything in Kitaro's discography is like trying to find a baby earwig on a wet clitoris), and to me represents the pinnacle of Kitaro's style. His albums tend to have an interchangeability factor, but Silver Cloud features memorable melodies and a lush sound that envelopes you in a very, very safe place. Beginning and ending with the sound of waves fading in and out, the album conjures up all sorts of wonderful images of space, sea, womb, bed, night, and sleep, but without actually putting you to sleep (in fact, it's sort of annoying to try to sleep to). "Earth Born" is a modern Pachelbel Canon, and would be the music played at my wedding if my country of origin would allow for us to get married. Beautiful song. Very simple, very wonderful. The rest of the album continues the journey, letting the synths lead the way. The closer, "Straightaway to Orion," is another classic new age "standard" in my opinion, perfectly bringing the listener back from space and back to the surf. It's a masterpiece. Maybe it won't be everyone's cup of tea, I don't know. It's quite probable that even the rest of the Loud Bassoon staffers would decry this kind of music as impossibly banal horse-ass. But I say with utter sincerity that this album is one of the best you can get, if you can get it. New age without shame, it can be a very good thing. Don't starve your chakra! (Ignorant tag line added for supposed comic effect. Karma value, negative 50.)
Review by Ted Gallant |
