by David Lyndon Huff
Green Hill Music
Worldbeat bills itself as "World Music For A New Millennium" which to someone as burned out on hyper promoted music as I am seems a bit far reaching. I like this disc, and while it incorporates elements of world music within a very conventional western ambience, it more or less only suggests at culture beyond the United States without really giving you the real thing.
And that’s ok, as long as you’re up front about it. Worldbeat seems to me to be the ultimate masculine background music. Something a guy can put on and not be accused of being New Age by the buds dropping by for a beer, yet sensitive enough to please the girls without having to suffer through Michael Bolton or Kenny G.
More or less it’s piano -- or something that sounds like one, you never know these days -- over a heavy layered synth background and a programmed steady drum groove. I don’t have a problem with any of this if the music’s good, and here it sort of sounds like the underscore of a great epic, with easy harmonies, melodic fragments more than melodies themselves, a lush and occasionally exotic program of very similar sounding pieces that more or less run together in one large cinematic sweep.
Mixed in with all this are some third world instruments, chanting monks, chanting African natives, sounds of rain and nature, the kind of stuff that could be really annoying if you don’t do it right. Huff, who wrote, arranged, and performed most of this, intentionally makes it all very subtle, kind of calming, with panoramic song titles like "Blue Nile," "Quest," "Sunset," and finally, "Midnight." "Blue Nile," the longest in the bunch, seems to standout as particularly good every time I play through it.
Anyway, enjoy, and don’t feel guilty.
Click here to return to Reviews Archives
