Album: American River -- Jonathan Elias
Jstas
Posts: 14,842
Yeah first thing to note is that the Valspar paint commercial? You've seen it, right? The music from the commercial, I went looking for it 'cause I didn't think they paid a composer to come up with it. Well, they didn't. The music is Track number 5 on this album. It's called "Crossing Rivers".
http://www.amazon.com/American-River-Jonathan-Elias/dp/B0002QO4G8/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1250196582&sr=8-4
This album is mostly instrumental with a few, maybe 5 out of 14 tracks with some spoken word stuff with instrumental backgrounds. The spoken word performers seem to be Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, Marty Stuart, Rosanne Cash and Johnny Cash because they are listed as contributing artists.
You have to know a little something about Elias to really understand this album. Elias is a composer and music producer best known for movie soundtracks. He's also the musical brain behind the PBS commercials. He's done the music for movie trailers for Alien, Blade Runner, Ghandi and Back to the Future. He's got quite a few soundtracks under his belt too. He also did work for MTV station ID spots with the Moonman, the Columbia Pictures marquee music and is the artist behind the Yahoo! Yodel. He's produced and/or authored pieces for/with John Barry, Duran Duran, Grace Jones, Yes, Michael Bolton and....it just goes on. The guy is a major modern musical influence.
The album is rather eclectic in the styles present and there are influences from around the globe but there seems to be a large Native American influence to the album. It's quite pleasing and relaxing to listen to.
The album itself is classified as "New Age". That's not really a bad thing though. It's made up of piano and string quartet instrumentals with a smattering of other instruments here and there.
The arrangements are fairly unique. They are very complex and whomever plays the piano on the tracks is absolutely incredible. It might be Elias himself but it is unclear from the jacket notes. Between the complexity of the arrangements and the artistry of the performers, this album has a great deal to offer the listener. It's well produced too and if there is any compression, it's not easily noticeable. no wonder it was nominated for a Grammy in 2004.
As for what to listen to it on, SDA's. This album will come to life on the SDA's. If you don't have SDA's, you need something with a good sound stage presence and as flat and wide of a frequency response as you can find. I also found that this plays well when it's loud. There are small nuances to the music that under low levels of listening don't come out as much. But if you crank the volume a bit, they pop out and add depth and detail to the whole experience. It's not a blaring or harsh recording either and I was able to push the volume pretty far without discomfort in the listening experience.
The only drawback this album has is that Elias uses it to push a fairly left-wing political and environmental agenda and that's unfortunate. I think that because I feel it detracts from the beauty of the album as a whole and seems to be an underhanded jab at it's intended listening audience.
If you can get past that last part, this is a throughly enjoyable album and probably a good one to put in the "demo disc" set for auditioning gear.
There's one more drawback in the sense that this album is a bit hard to find but it is completely worth looking for!
http://www.amazon.com/American-River-Jonathan-Elias/dp/B0002QO4G8/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1250196582&sr=8-4
This album is mostly instrumental with a few, maybe 5 out of 14 tracks with some spoken word stuff with instrumental backgrounds. The spoken word performers seem to be Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, Marty Stuart, Rosanne Cash and Johnny Cash because they are listed as contributing artists.
You have to know a little something about Elias to really understand this album. Elias is a composer and music producer best known for movie soundtracks. He's also the musical brain behind the PBS commercials. He's done the music for movie trailers for Alien, Blade Runner, Ghandi and Back to the Future. He's got quite a few soundtracks under his belt too. He also did work for MTV station ID spots with the Moonman, the Columbia Pictures marquee music and is the artist behind the Yahoo! Yodel. He's produced and/or authored pieces for/with John Barry, Duran Duran, Grace Jones, Yes, Michael Bolton and....it just goes on. The guy is a major modern musical influence.
The album is rather eclectic in the styles present and there are influences from around the globe but there seems to be a large Native American influence to the album. It's quite pleasing and relaxing to listen to.
The album itself is classified as "New Age". That's not really a bad thing though. It's made up of piano and string quartet instrumentals with a smattering of other instruments here and there.
The arrangements are fairly unique. They are very complex and whomever plays the piano on the tracks is absolutely incredible. It might be Elias himself but it is unclear from the jacket notes. Between the complexity of the arrangements and the artistry of the performers, this album has a great deal to offer the listener. It's well produced too and if there is any compression, it's not easily noticeable. no wonder it was nominated for a Grammy in 2004.
As for what to listen to it on, SDA's. This album will come to life on the SDA's. If you don't have SDA's, you need something with a good sound stage presence and as flat and wide of a frequency response as you can find. I also found that this plays well when it's loud. There are small nuances to the music that under low levels of listening don't come out as much. But if you crank the volume a bit, they pop out and add depth and detail to the whole experience. It's not a blaring or harsh recording either and I was able to push the volume pretty far without discomfort in the listening experience.
The only drawback this album has is that Elias uses it to push a fairly left-wing political and environmental agenda and that's unfortunate. I think that because I feel it detracts from the beauty of the album as a whole and seems to be an underhanded jab at it's intended listening audience.
If you can get past that last part, this is a throughly enjoyable album and probably a good one to put in the "demo disc" set for auditioning gear.
There's one more drawback in the sense that this album is a bit hard to find but it is completely worth looking for!
Expert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you!
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you!