Backroads
Music "Heartbeat Catalog"
www.backroadsmusic.com
Through four CDs, Lee Ellen Shoemaker aka The Tunnel Singer
relied on her more than ample voice to carry the music—resonating,
digging deep and lifting right out of the earth. Each
CD offered a different theme, from the tunnels and caves where
she originated her sound to the night skies where inspiration
reached a new height.
On
"Sailing the Solar Wind" other elements are added; field recordings,
percussion loops, and electronic processing through the rather
extensive use of synthesizers.
The
CD begins a tranquil yet energizing journey that begins with
a cosmic glide on the solar wind. This is ethno-tribal ambient
music that invites the listener to take the journey quite eagerly.
Then a refreshing thundershower moves to the desert where a
secluded bloom emerges fragrant in the night. Light percussion
touches acccentuate the uncovering of beauty in seemingly desolate
spaces, with tribal percussion and pulsating didgeridoo.
The
pace slows to explore the mystery of water flowing into sea
caves, and then lifts into an exploration of the color red.
Finally, the journey reenters the earthly plane to dance with
enlivened ravens.
The
music combines vocals, often unearthly, varied percussion, field
recordings and electronic processing that is also out of this
world at times. By far, this is the most ambitious recording
yet from the imaginative Tunnel Singer, and it still retains
the magic and unique appeal of her earlier titles. Sail on!
Lloyd Barde
Backroads Music "Home of the Heartbeat Catalog" and
"Mystic Music"
www.backroadsmusic.com
Alternate
Music Press "The Multimedia Journal of New Music"
www.alternatemusicpress.com
I
am very fond of overtone singing, and atmospheric music in general.
This new album by Lee Ellen Shoemaker is a departure from her
previous albums. Due to a temporary medical
problem, Lee Ellen's usual magical vocals have opened up
an opportunity to incorporate more electronics and innovative
field recordings in this new aural adventure.
This
new offering is an hour long soothing yet energizing journey:
an imaginary ride on the solar wind. The music combines vocal
elements, exotic percussion, captivating field recordings and
unique digital processing in the studio.
In
a way, it's like a shamanic journey, embracing a tonal language
of emotional content designed to take the listener on a timeless
musical experience.
The
six compositions on "Sailing the Solar Wind intertwine ambient
textures with melodic themes, expanding Shoemaker's musical
vision in many new directions.
Each of the six tracks creates a hypnotic, life flowing and
sensuous universe of sound, unveiling a message of harmony and
peace from a timeless cosmos.
Shoemaker rolls out a remarkable new map; the kind used by adventurous
travelers as they move across invisible borders and unchartered
landscapes.
The
textures are smooth and flowing - an unrelenting aura of atmospherics
pervade this optimistic yet timeless interlude.
Shoemaker's
music creates cutting-edge atmospheres, savoring peak moments
and profound musical discoveries, engulfing the entire album
in dreamlike memories, and reshaping them gently over time.
Highly recommended.
Ben Kettlewell
Alternate Music Press "The
Multimedia Journal of New Music"
www.alternatemusicpress.com
Exposé
Magazine "Expanding the Boundaries of Rock"
www.expose.org
Lee
Ellen Shoemaker, best known for her live ethereal solo vocalizations
in caverns and tunnels in the Marin headlands north of San Francisco,
is back with her fifth album. Less than a minute into the first
track, the astute listener will recognize new sounds that have
not been part of her sonic palette before: percussion loops, field
recordings, and electronic processing all combine with her voice
to make this her most ambitious and forward looking project to
date.
The title track which opens the disc begins in familiar territory,
but a light percussive loop in the background lends a bit of structure,
while electronic processing is employed to alter her voice into
new sounds. Vocal samples and other found sounds punctuate the
sonic landscape.
Throughout
the disc, new sounds are explored, derived from voice processing
and sampling, and mixed together in ways that stretch the boundaries
of sound, but still remain true to the ambient nature of her
previous works. It isn't until the fifth track "Red Red"
that the percussion and sample loops and repetitive structures
really begin to dominate the sound in a way that hints at techno
styles, yet offers enough variation via the samples, voices
and intermittent electronic sounds to keep it happening across
the ten minute duration.
Over the course of the previous four discs she had essentially
done all that can be done with voice and natural reverb alone;
this one easily gets beyond that, taking a bold step forward
into some new directions.
Peter Thelen
Exposé Magazine "Expanding the Boundaries of Rock"
www.expose.org
Wind
and Wire
www.windandwire.com
Sometimes, a tragic event can have unexpected positive outcomes,
as is the case for The Tunnel Singer, a.k.a. Lee Ellen Shoemaker.
Her previous albums featured her dramatic "tunnel singing"
as the main (if not only) source of melody, and what a stunning
voice she has! Unfortunately, due to some medical
problems, she has had to curtail her singing to a large
degree. As a result, when the time came to release a new album,
she had to rethink a new direction for her music.
And
what a new direction she has taken! Sailing the Solar Wind is
an excellent recording, full of superb ethno-tribal ambient
music and containing elements of spacemusic as well. Besides
her (more subdued than before) vocals, there are electronics
in abundance, all manner of percussion, and unique field recordings
that are integrated into the music at various times in the albums.
I
was immediately won over just a few minutes into the opening
title track. Shoemaker¹s voice starts things off with some beautiful
echoed wordless singing, but soon the song introduces sensuous
tribal hand percussion as an undercurrent to her voice (the
echo effect on her singing is wonderful). The sound of massing
crows lends the song an eerie feel, and it is so well-recorded
that when I first heard them cawing, I thought it was a flock
of them in my backyard!
Later,
spacy textures and processing are applied to vocal snippets,
as well as alien-sounding synth effects. The cut is over twelve
minutes long and it¹s a deliciously lengthy trip, as other musical
touches are brought into the picture (floating keyboards, darker
drone-like tones, quasi-tribal vocal cries).
There
are five more tracks on the album (only two of which are under
ten minutes long). One of my favorites is "Enchanted Rain"
which blends the sound of falling rain with mid-fast tempo hand
drums and ethereal vocalizings; the song is ultra-evocative
and sensuous in the best sense of the word (but then, Shoemaker¹s
previous works always had a primal feel to them).
"Enchanted
Rain" also features more overt use of synthesizers, as
they cascade up and down the scale, mirroring the falling rain.
More ethnic percussion is added and grows more prominent in
the mix as the track develops. The rain itself is not static,
as a crack of thunder sometimes erupts as well as the intensity
of the rain itself changing during the piece.
"Desert
Flower" is solid "desert ambience," full of music
which evokes shimmering waves of heat rising from the desert
floor (wavering drones and isolated percussive textures and
assorted processed/echoed flutes, sounding just a tad like Robert
Rich).
Again,
as the cut evolves, the percussion takes center stage in the
mix, this time being dominated by what sounds like water drums
and/or tabla. The desert is not that of the American southwest,
but is the lonely bareness of the Sahara, with miles and miles
of dunes and caravans of nomads who somehow scratch an existence
out in the cruel environment.
"Sea
Caves" is yet another well-executed ethno-tribal/tribal
ambient track, once again employing assorted hand percussion
and fluid synths - drawing a comparison to Tuu or o yuki conjugate
(minus any flutes). Pitch-bending keyboards (almost mellotron-like
in sound) ebb and flow later in the track, then disappear, eventually
replaced by didgeridoo swirlings.
While
I¹m sorry for Lee Ellen Shoemaker¹s medical problems, and I
hope for her healthy recovery and the resumption of her tunnel
singing, what she found as a replacement until then is like
finding the proverbial diamond in the rough. And boy, does this
diamond shine!
Bill Binkelman
Wind and Wire
www.windandwire.com
