Sound the All-Clear
There’s a pan-global feel to Christopher Campbell’s music that might be familiar to any time-traveler racking up the frequent flyer miles. Bowed koto and Fender Rhodes piano are as likely to make an appearance as a pseudo-Scottish patriotic song or the sound of a sparrow colony in the shrubbery near his house. It’s altogether a luscious organic ritual that transcends studio, concert hall, epoch and continent; American Gagaku for the space age.
Sound the All-Clear is the first album by composer/film-maker Campbell and his visual sense bleeds through every imaginary sound-space. The ‘all-clear’ is a traditional signal in time of strife or tempest that the danger has passed and peace has returned to the land. The music on these 12 tracks seems to breathe post-apocalyptic relief as it cycles and settles, expands and contracts.
The unlikely ensemble brought together for the project features a dozen top pros (such as Todd Hammes, Susie Ibarra, Michelle Kinney and others) and enthusiastic friends happy to sing, fidget and groove to realize Campbell’s cunningly-contrapuntal, architecturally-planned score. With its audiophile production quality every tinkle, chime and plunk sounds golden.
Christopher Campbell studied composition and film at Sarah Lawrence College and his teachers have included George Tsontakis and David Del Tredici. His music hits the Reboot button on classical music. He works at a record label in St. Paul.
