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Gorn, Levin, Marotta - From The Caves Of Iron Mountain

Artist:	Gorn, Levin, Marotta
Title:	From The Caves Of Iron Mountain
Label:	Discipline Global Mobile DGM 9706
Length(s):	53 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1997
Month of review:	12/1997

Line up

Steve Gorn - east indian flutes, reeds
Tony Levin - chapman stick, basses
Jerry Marotta - taos drums, percussion

Tracks

1)	Approaching The Cavern	1.25
2)	Man Walking From A To B	3.39
3)	In The Caves Of The Iron Mountain	3.38
4)	Drumming On Water	3.29
5)	Devil's Kitchen	3.43
6)	Shakers In Five	3.53
7)	Glass Beads	3.33
8)	Joyous Lake	2.41
9)	Catskill Gallery
	The Abandoned IBM Plant	1.52
	Woodstock, The Indian Burial Ground	1.40
	Swimming The Shokan Rooftops	1.27
	Overlook Mountain	3.21
13)	Shepherd's Song	3.47
14)	Catacombs	4.18
15)	Magic Meadow	3.41
16)	The Widow Jane Mine	3.14
17)	Squeeze Box	3.44

and a video playable on MAC and PC.

Summary

In a rather thin. but beautiful digipack, an experimental album by this trio from America. Surely, Tony Levin of King Crimson is the most well known of these, but the other two are also quite well-known names and often do session work.

The music

Recorded binaurally by Tchad Blake, this is indeed something to play with the headphones on, so you get an impression of where the sounds are. In fact I'm now reviewing this with the phones on. After the soft opener, the second track, Man Walking From A To B, is louder with heavy drums, Gorn playing the melody on clarinet and Levin plays both dark sounds and electric guitarlike accompaniment on his stick. On In The Caves Of The Iron Mountain Gorn plays an indian flute (Bansuri) while Tony plays the NS upright bass. This bass has very low sounds, a bit wailing at times, and according to the booklet, this was a prototype and it will probably never be put into production.

Devil's Kitchen is rather thunderous (because of the drums) and one can hear quite well that the recorder is walking around with the microphone. The music is constantly shifting. The melody played by the soprano sax has an Arabic quality to it. As can be seen in the accompanying "movie" (see later) and as is described in the booklet on Shakers In Five, Levin plays the NS BoxBass with Funk Fingers. The melody played by Levin on Glass Beads is very nice, and has a classical ring to it. The first part of Catskill Gallery is very dark and menacing with Levin on the NS Upright. Catacombs is can be rather hectic with quick and loud stick playing (on the guitar strings), but also some very soft and moody flute parts are present.

The CD also includes a CDrom track with an interesting QuickTime movie (i.e. not that big) with some music and footage to show them play right there in the cave. When they talk it seems a little strange since the words and the images do not go together exactly, but it's nice to hear something of the recording process. Hopefully, more bands will get the idea that there are better ways to fill up a CD then with twenty or so minutes of lousy tracks.

Conclusion

The trio Gorn, Levin, Marotta have tried to do what they would like to do, in an environment as natural and relaxed as possible, but with support from modern technology. The music often seems improvised and should be compared to what generally is called World Music. It is not very happy or up-tempo, but generally rather relaxed, moody and dark with some nice melodies as well. If the track Lone Bear on the Plus From Us CD (the Levin track) was to your liking, this will probably be too. interesting stuff, but fortunately it is good music as well, although one does need to have a taste for it. The tracks I liked best are Man Walking From A To B, Devil's Kitchen, Glass Beads en Catacombs.