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The work of Michael Stearns always manages to take us out of ourselves and into somewhere wondrous. It has its own order, its own unity, and declaration of hope. His perfectly ethereal, utterly auraculous Morning Jewel (47:46) hovers sacredly in the stillness between night and day. Originally issued by Continuum Montage on audio cassette in 1979 (and then on Compact Disc by Sonic Atmospheres in 1985 and Groove Unlimited in 2000) this beloved work is again in a new conversation with listeners attuned to the righteous and majestic. For the 2024 remaster on Projekt Records, reworking the decades old recording with the audio technology of today bestowed an exciting new life on this elevated classic of New Age minimalism. Each generating a distinctive meditative gentleness the mood of the two tracks moves from the microscopic to the monumental. In scenes longer and looser, Morning Jewel is dependent on a sense of prolonged duration, so that we may feel the musician's fascination with the beliefs he wishes to convey. The murmuring of softer synthesizers sends forth sublime sounds and sweet airs. The skill with which Stearns modulates light and dark, Earth and sky, ornamentation and starkness follows a rare beauty of form, harmonic drama, melodious accord and expressive depth - a perfectly undisturbed transformation of this most hopeful part of the day into a music quite profound. Blending together field recordings of natural sounds and a chorus of fragile, wordless vocals with early modular synth drones and tones Morning Jewel reduces the randomly fluctuating particles of the human condition with the certainty that dawn invariably follows night with the promise of a new day - Stearns' elegant resolution of the eastern glow.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 20 June 2024 |
