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| Aqualude |
The violinist/composer Dana Lyn is a Brooklyn based musician who late
last year released a genre defying album titled Aqualude,
a musical suite of compositions that tell a story of a fantastical aquatic
adventure with an underlying environmental message. This instrumental suite combines rock rhythms
and jazz-like improvisations with chamber music instrumentation. For lack of
categorization some have labeled it Disney on crack.
The music follows the
adventures of a mythical boy who is magically transported through a whimsical undersea
adventure, an Aqualude. The journey sets out on land in a Glacial territory
that is showing signs of warming. A boy is thrown into the water by agitated
flying carp. This unexpected journey requires no oxygen apparatus and turns into an underwater fantasy becoming an amusement
park-like diorama complete with images
of an albino mother octopus judiciously
protecting its eggs, a magical branch ( given to him by the Octopus)
that allows the boy access to the an underwater cavern and an encounter with a white whale that takes the
boy on its back, diving to darkest depths of the ocean. The boy experiences a unique
menagerie of fascinatingly diverse aquatic animals that he views while riding
on a living carpet of near transparent Yeti crabs.
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| Composer/violinist Dana Lyn |
The allegory in Ms.
Lyn’s work interrupts this otherwise playful journey, when the boy ultimately comes
across an unsettling discovery; the existence of a robotic powered,
man-made, energy generating machine at the ocean floor. The strangely out of
place apparatus clandestinely disrupts the natural order of things in the ocean,
causing unwelcome and life threatening consequences both underwater and on the
earth above. The thermal energy generated by the machine jettisons the boy to
the surface where he is eventually re-united with his distraught family. The
boy has been permanently changed by his journey, whether it was real or
imagined. He realizes he has unfinished business. He has been given a gift of
understanding- presumably about the conspiratorial nature of greedy energy companies
and their blatant misuse of natural resources-and he must take this enlightenment
and use it for the greater good. Was
Ms. Lyn commissioned by the environmental group Greenpeace one might ask?
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| Angel Door |
This moralistic tale is played out musically by Ms. Lyn and
her fellow musicians Jonathan Goldberger on guitars, Clara Kennedy on cello, Mike
McGinnis on clarinet and bass clarinet and Vinnie Sperrazza on drums. Ms. Lyn
skillfully composes the music that creates an aural image of the story she is
relating. The rock orientated drum-driven frenzy of the flying fish in “Carping,” the loping
chamber-like cello sounds of Clara Kennedy representing the aging octopus, the sound of being suspended in the bubbling
waters created beautifully by Ms. Lyn on violin and Mr. Goldberger’s electric guitar, all on ”Mother
Octopus.” A fascinating study in how music can shape images in our minds.
The music often mimics a sense of being emerged in the
ocean’s depths, conveying a sense of being suspended from reality.
Is this really happening or is it merely a fantastic dream? One can only
imagine listening to this music under the influence of some psychotropic drug.
The most identifiable melody in the suite is the “Yeti Crab
Theme Song.” The music starts out with
Ms. Lyn on an instrument called an Angel Door. It is a musical sculpture piece,
the creation of Shelby and Latham Gaines, a stringed instrument created by
modifying an old wooden door and fitting it with strings. Originally made on commission
from the actor/director Ethan Hawke for a play Clive, the sound it creates has an old music box quality. Mr.
Goldberger plays an echo enhanced guitar ostinato over which Mr. McGinnis
floats the buoyant sounds of his clarinet. Ms. Lyn and Ms. Kennedy weave
intricate patterns with their strings as Mr. Sperrazza keeps the cadence of a muted
march in the background.
The first “Aqualude” (oddly there are two
compositions with
this title) is a short piece that feels like you are descending deep
into the
ocean in some enclosed diving bell. This leads into “Pyramid” where the
man-made, automaton-operated machine is discovered. Ms. Lyn and company
create
a sense of climax through a series of spiraling and ever ascending notes
played
in unison with her band. The boy returns to the surface on “The Snow in
General” and is
reunited with his family on the second “Aqualude,” a somber piece of music that has the sound
of a distant horn, a beacon leading
you out of a dense fog. The boy shares
his new found knowledge with his family. The knowledge curiously supersedes any
robust feeling of joy over his fortuitous return. The suite ends with “Yeti Sleeps” a
poignantly played piece that has a melancholy flavor. The boy has an unsettling
restlessness from his new found discovery. Was the voyage real or
imagined? Is his discovery of the
dreaded machine something that requires his action?
Labels are pointless in music as each artist has a right to
explore all possibilities wherever inspiration may take them with no regard to
how it fits into some predetermined schema. Ms. Lyn has disregarded labels to
tell a fantasy, an aquatic adventure that she has chosen as a vehicle to somehow
speak to a greater problem, global warming. For the most part her efforts are a success. But the pairing of the fantasy and the message seem
incongruous. Disney meets Exxon? Ms Lyn excels at instrumentally creating an
aural underwater world of wonder and beauty. But when she attempts to attach a
moralistic message to this fantasy her otherwise beautiful music seems to be insufficiently evocative in its musical portrayal of the real menace.
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Here is a you tube sample of Dana Lyn's violin work with Guitarist Kyle Sanna:
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