By Kirk Silsbee | Published May 2017
Longtime fans of drummer and percussionist Alex Cline shouldn’t be surprised at his long-form musical meditation on poems by Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh and excerpts from the Avatamsaka Sutra. Though he can play straight like no one’s business, Cline uses his larger percussive palette for sound paintings, and there has often been a mystical element to his own projects.
For all of the space allotted to gong-and-cymbal resonance and free improvising, Cline the composer-programmer is astute enough to keep the music changing: He can take you from the serene temple to the tempest-battered ocean to a juicy groove within a five-part movement.
Areni Agbabian’s delicate soprano vocals may be an acquired taste, but she’s capable of exquisite modulation on “The Old Mendicant.” She’s steamrollered, though, on the rock beat of “Mahayama,” where Wayne Peet blazes a wicked organ fusillade. Those vocals, delivered in even tones and cadences, can become part of the sonic wallpaper unless one follows along with the libretto.
When Cline wants to accent the peaceful stretches with strong undercurrent of darker sounds, Jeff Gauthier’s violin and G.E. Stinson’s electric guitar can roil the seas. Brother Nels Cline’s cold fire guitar pointedly ignites a storm of pedal effects on “We Will Be Back Again.”
On the surface, this might appeal to a tightly focused audience. But give the album half a chance—something other than drive-by listening—and one should find many points of interest, if not small miracles.
Oceans Of Vows: Disc One: The Tree Of Enlightenment; A Flash Of Lightning; The Voice Of The Buddha; The Old Mendicant; We Will Be Back Again. (65:23) Disc Two The Flower Bank World; The Incalculable; Mahamaya; Interbeing; The Ten Great Aspirations Of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva. (52:23)
Personnel: Alex Cline, drums, gongs, percussion; Jeff Gauthier, elec- tric violin; Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, electric five-string violin; Maggie Parkins, cello; Will Salmon, flute, recorders; Nels Cline, G.E. Stinson, electric guitars; Wayne Peet, electric piano, organ; Yuka C. Honda, elec- tric keyboards, samples; Brad Dutz, vibraphone, hand drums, crotales, gongs, percussion; Chi Li, erhu, zhonghu, zheng, qin; Scott Walton, bass, keyboard; Areni Agbabian, vocal; Vicki Ray, conductor.
