Some music simply demands to be listened to as if it were a soundtrack. Not "background music" or even music that accentuates whatever may be happening at the time. I'm talking about the kind of music that creates an environment, draws you in then allows you to see everything around you in an almost completely different way. Sometimes calm and peaceful... Sometimes surreal. Always fascinating if you can only conquer the hurdle of a short attention span. Patience is demanded.
To give you an example... Yesterday I went to the park for my morning walk. This is a routine that I've maintained for the past...uh...three or four days. I'm hoping I can keep it up, but if I know me it will get grounded within the next week. But no matter, right now I'm enjoying the walks and I especially like to listen to music on my nifty little MP3 player as I traverse the length of the park's "walking trail" (not sure that's what it's actually called, but what the hoo). I didn't know what I was going to listen to, but the choices were few. I tend to load the entire catalogs of artists on my player and not a bunch of songs by a lot of different ones. Right now the selections are limited to Sigur Ros (and Jonsi), Autechre, Gustav Mahler, Sun Kil Moon, an audiobook of Stephen Hawking's "The Universe in a Nutshell") and a new release by a guy named Kyle Bobby Dunn called "A Young Person's Guide To Kyle Bobby Dunn". I hadn't really listened to much of that one, but from what I had heard I thought was very nice drone-based music. I didn't think I was in the mood for that one, though, as I was leaning toward Mahler or Autechre. But I've listened to so much of that recently I was kind of angry at myself for not putting something new/different on there. Then I thought, well, this Kyle Bobby Dunn thing is new and different. But no, I wasn't in the mood. I considered both of the other choices until finally I said to myself, "Why NOT the Dunn? You're wanting to write a piece about it eventually. Now is the time to get a feel for it."
So I decided to take a chance. I'd listen to "A Young Person's Guide To...", and if it were too lulling I would replace it with Mahler. I pushed play and I started walkin'. Before I'd gotten too far I noticed subtle changes in the scenery. Not actual "changes", of course, but perceptible differences in the way I was seeing the things around me. The way the trees bent and bowed and how they seemed to dance with each other in the wind. The pungent smells of the shrubbery seemed magnified to the point that it was almost overwhelming. The strengthening conviction that I could drop my body like it was a shell and still be on my merry way, missing nothing. And with that thought I was able to "feel" my body in a different way, like it was nothing but a car I was driving.
I realized then that the reason for this subtle shift in my reality was the music coming through my headphones. A kind of "music" that a lot of people (most?) would likely not even classify as such. Elements of rhythm and melody in Dunn's work on much of this album are practically non-existent. Which is nothing new to people who appreciate ambient music. According to my definition of the term, Kyle Bobby Dunn most definitely makes ambient music. He makes it very well, actually. Where most composers take vibrations, chop them and squeeze them into manageable units to serve their artistic needs, Kyle Bobby Dunn lets the sound flow and molds it like a wet clay jar in a potter's hands. As the music demands patience in hearing, I am sure it requires even more to produce. I know this from my own experience, as I have tried to compose this kind of stuff for a long, long time. I never succeeded because the task became too daunting. It's NOT easy. Not a whole lot of people can make it work. "A Young Person's Guide To..." could well be a handbook of how TO make it work.
I'm very serious about the analogy of KBD's technique being like a potter with sound acting as the "clay". I can close my eyes and imagine, quite vividly, the guy taking a stream of sound into his hands, shaping and forming it until it serves his vision. Releasing it into a stream of energy to get lost in, the harmonics floating around like slow fireflies.
I feel a strong reluctance to classify this album as "new age". Nothing wrong with that kind of music... for the most part I actually like a good lot of it. But so much pure crap has been foisted upon the world under the rubric of "new age" that it's no surprise if people dismiss it on the basis of categorization alone. Even so, ambient and early new age are almost one and the same. This is an ambient record, of that there is no mistake, so I guess we might as well call it new age as well (the GOOD kind, mind you). But to my ears "A Young Person's Guide To..." belongs to a genre called Space Music. It's like the music you could once hear on NPR's "Hearts of Space" radio program (sadly they don't seem to play a whole lot of the truly old school space music anymore). You can float to this music. It's like fuel for astral projection. A slow unfolding. I'm reminded of some of Steve Roach's compositions, with their ethereal sound. Kyle Bobby Dunn easily stands in Roach's company and, in certain aspects, even surpasses him. I've read a bit about Dunn since first receiving the record to review. One word that stands out in various descriptions of his work is "minimalist". I'm not sure that I'm buying that, though. Not that I'm uniquely qualified to classify, as my appreciation of minimalist music is basically limited to enjoying the work of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Cage and a few other giants of the genre. Not to say that it wouldn't be proper to tag Dunn with the label. I'm sure it fits aptly enough. But the man is working the harmonics on these songs in such a skillful, intricate way that there's nothing "minimal" about it.
If I could say one thing, though, that I hope isn't interpreted in the wrong way... "A Young Person's Guide To..." is best enjoyed in increments. A song at a time, maybe two. This is a double disc affair and there's not a bad track in the lot, but there IS a lot to take in. Plus, don't let all this talk of genres fool you or dissuade you from checking it out. It's a unique voyage into places you've never been, a true experience. All of which sounds like overkill... I don't mean for it to. This isn't going to be an album that you're going to want to play every day. But when you DO put on the headphones and give it 15 minutes of your day, you will be rewarded and there's no doubt you WILL want to make the trip again and again.
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