Sunday, May 12, 2024
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Allen Ravenstine: Shore Leave

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Artist: Allen Ravenstine (@)
Title: Shore Leave
Format: CD EP
Label: Waveshaper Media (@)
Allen Ravenstine is best known for his work in the band Pere Ubu. He is also, like Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, a commercial pilot. This is disc two in the "Tyranny of Fiction" series. The liner note say "90 miles to the Spanish harbor. Good night for it. You motor passed the point palms rustling the breeze shifting pulling the scent of shore out to you. Motoring off toward the thin line of the horizon toward the end of the world." This gives you a sense of the feel that Ravenstine is going for.

We open up with "Shore Leave," which is a calm piano number with water field recordings. It's pretty, but there isn't much to it other than the piano composition. "In Search of Memory" comes next with a lot of different percussion; we have bells, marimba, cabasa, and rainstick. It's peaceful and interesting, and perhaps I’m biased because I’m a percussionist, but this was to me the most enjoyable track on the disc. "Pink Dusk at the Point" and "Ninety Miles to the Spanish Harbor" are more piano compositions. They're nice, but nothing that really pushes the envelope. "Fleche D'Or (Golden Arrow)" concludes the disc with an announcer at a train station in some foreign language with field recordings of trains and the sounds of children playing that gives you a cinematic feel to it giving you the feeling of actually being somewhere. He sneaks in themes from "Ninety Miles to the Spanish Harbor" and "Shore Leave" into the piece, which gives a sense of continuity.

Overall, this is a pleasant listen and you get a sense of being somewhere. The feeling overall is sentimental and the piano playing has a sense of emotion to it that keeps it interesting. But for Chain D.L.K., this is kind of a mixed bag, as it's not quite as experimental as the first in this series ("Electron Music"). Still, one could think of this series as Ravenstine's calling card that gives a sense of his depth of musical ability. This disc weighs in at around 25 minutes.

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