Rea, Dennis

Views From Chicheng Precipice

Label: MoonJune Country: USA

"Internationally-acclaimed for his work with MoonJune artists art-rock juggernaut Moraine (MJR028), and free-jazz provocateurs Iron Kim Style (MJR031), guitarist and composer Dennis Rea has been a key presence on the Pacific Northwest creative music scene for decades.

With Views From Chicheng Precipice, his most ambitious release to date, he presents a completely different but equally-compelling facet of his musical personality. Boldly unorthodox in its choice of instrumentation, approach and treatment of traditional musical material -- while remaining warmly respectful of its sources -- the result is an elegant, yet adventurous work that goes far beyond any stereotypical "East-West fusion".

Rea's MoonJune solo debut is an heartfelt homage to the music of East Asia, filled with moments of beauty and intrigue.

Dennis Rea's adventurous guitar playing blends modern jazz, creative rock, experimental music, and world musical traditions into an approach that is uniquely his own, marked by haunting lyricism, enigmatic textures, agile improvisation, and the raw dynamism of rock. Over the years he has led or been a key contributor to such innovative groups as Moraine, Land (with Jeff Greinke), Stackpole, Iron Kim Style, Savant (with K. Leimer), Earthstar (produced by Klaus Schulze), Identity Crisis, and Ting Bu Dong. He has performed or recorded with such prominent creative musicians as acclaimed French composer Hector Zazou, Dutch jazz legend Han Bennink, trombone virtuoso Stuart Dempster, and godfather of Chinese rock Cui Jian, as well as with members of King Crimson, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Ministry, and the Sun Ra Arkestra. He has collaborated with many of the most important figures in contemporary Chinese music and was one of the first Western musicians to record an album for the state-owned China Record Company. He is also an accomplished author whose most recent work is the book Live at the Forbidden City: Musical Encounters in China and Taiwan."-MoonJune Records

"Dennis Rea is an interesting gentleman whether he's trying to beat your brains out in his thunderous work in the mountainously juggernauting Moraine (here) and Iron Kim Style (here) or seducing the inner reaches of mentality with gorgeously wrought relics from distant lands. The guy never settles for an easily grasped gold ring, finding more of value in hidden corners and oblique promontories. Views from the Chicheng Precipice falls squarely in that latter mode.

Flanked by a chamber ensemble of exceptional finesse and beauty, Rea opts for a sedater yet more abstract approach to his six-string work, emulating Eastern modes, timbres, and inflections, drawing as much from Noh and rice paddies as from Tibetan refrains, everything peppered with Korean and Vietnamese overtones. In that, he more than once reaches back to some of the earlier unusual (and not very well known) guitarists like Blonker, Christian Boule, and the unorthodox Guitarists of the Apocalypse (otherwise known as Les 4 Guitaristes de L'Apocalypso, the post-Conventum group) while preserving the comportment of not just the expected koto, dan bau (which he plays here), and other stringed instruments but also biwa, shakuhachi, and mysterious wind axes.

The title cut displays the anarchic elements of King Crimson's Moonchild mid-section and Jamie Muir while it's follower, Tangabata, conflates some of the best old CTI sound (here, especially in Freddie Hubbard) with exceedingly airy swamp-jungle ambiances. Caterina De Ra, in a stunning vocal recitation in Aviariations, shows us what Yoko Ono, Meredith Monk, and Joan LaBarbera should've been doing all along. As you listen, Harold Budd's Pavilion of Dreams will likewise invoked as a comparative, not so much in concordance with Rea's milieu but for the same degree of breathtakingly exquisite craftsmanship and exotica. Thus, given all the aforegoing, I probably needn't mention that Views is releasing on the adventurous and far-reaching MoonJune label, an imprint that's saving progrock from itself...thank God...and the disc is recommended only to those with grandly elevated taste and discernment.

Surely you know someone of that caliber...yourself perhaps?"-Acoustic Music

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