From
the Press Release:
"It
is 4,000 miles from Tim Story's recording studio in Maumee, Ohio to
the teeming Spanish capital of Madrid. From there, another four hours
by jet to the deserts of Niger. Beyond that, the Himalayas of Nepal
are an unimaginable nine-month journey by caravan.
So why choose Story to score Caravan,
a feature-length Spanish documentary set in Nepal and north Africa?
On the surface, it might seem a curious choice. But a familiarity with
Story's uniquely evocative music leads to a more logical explanation.
"I saw a thousand adventures, dunes, sky, stars, and empty spaces",
says Caravan's music supervisor Alán Cantos, "and
I was only two-thirds into [Tim's] first CD!" Discovered one day
on a Madrid radio station, Story's music had stayed with Cantos, prompting
him to share it with Caravan's director Gerardo Olivares during
one of the film crew's shoots in Niger. It became a kind of soundtrack
for their long days and nights in the desert.
From the production company of award-winning
director Pedro Almodovar, Caravan weaves together a pair of
wonderful stories, seen through the eyes of two adolescent boys: Pemba
in Nepal, and Rabdoulah in Niger. Each will embark on an adventure that
few of us Westerners will ever experience; the centuries-old salt caravans.
An economic necessity, and a fast-disappearing rite of passage in their
respective cultures, the journeys that Caravan documents will
be the first of these boys' young lives. Filled with stunning images
of incredible beauty and danger, the documentary also impresses with
its subtle portrayal of Pemba and Rabdoulah. Running through this narrative,
and connecting these diverse threads with understated power and sensitivity,
is the music of Tim Story.
There are the occasional geographic cues
in Story's music for Caravan: the tongue drums deftly played
by Louie Simon, the oriental flute in one piece or the chants of Tibetan
Buddhist monks in another, all of which conjure for the listener a vivid
sense of time and place. But this soundtrack is no world music travelogue
- the orchestration is primarily Story's unique palette of Western classical
instruments and subtle electronics, and the landscapes he renders are
the internal landscapes of human experience. Caravan is a film
about people, and Story's music searches for the nuances and truths
of human nature, not for easy faux-ethnic cliches. Beautifully articulated
by Kim Bryden's oboe and Martha Reikow's cello, Story's spare yet rich
themes map for us the emotional terrain of Pemba and Rabdoulah's journeys;
and in doing so, give us a recording that is strikingly haunting and
entirely rewarding, even when removed from the film itself.
Remixed, re-sequenced and in some instances
even re-composed for this cd release by Story himself, Caravan
shows clearly why the Grammy-nominated composer has been called "a
master of electronic chamber music" (CD Review, USA), and "a
true artist in the electronic medium" (Victory Review, USA)."
|
