Marlon Cherry- Ancient Sound, Modern Dance
(Fang Records FMCD2)
Marlon Cherry- Ancient Sound, Modern Dance
(Fang Records FMCD2)
From Aural Innovations #39 (May 2008)
Marlon is a multi-instrumentalist from NY. He played briefly with Doug Walker
and Alien Planetscapes in the early 80’s. He recently contacted me after
finding the web site and sent his latest music CD. He plays all the instruments
and sings except for tabla drums on 3 of the tracks. These are pieces of cool
slightly psychedelic music that are supposed to be for modern dance pieces or
at least with that in mind, so when you hear this music, close your eyes and
image someone dancing… The music is a bit all over the place with a mixture
of all kinds of styles but always a lot of guitar playing. Koku afuera De Djoniba
features his excellent djembe playing as well as strange and interesting guitar.
A Tea Party has a slow slightly funky groove and Marlon does some singing as
well. A beautiful melodic song. Baila para Azucar is a mainly djembe based piece
with Marlon also singing in Spanish. For Another Rune (which is dedicated to
Paul Taylor) Marlon has dropped the djembe playing and focuses on some beautiful
guitar. Very beautiful… Center Stage is wherever she Is features the spoken
words of Martha Graham and is one of the tracks with tabla by Deep Singh, who
mastered the CD. This track has a quite cool and dreamy psychedelic feel…
Sparkle is a mostly vocal and drum piece. Ballet Hispanico Summer is the longest
track and features some cool guitar and (is it?) xylophone before going in a
very Spanish Santana like direction. Cool piece. Din in Ten and Aveenu Malcainu
both feature Deep on the tablas again. I love the guitar on the last spacey
track. The CD ends with Pastel Colours, a melodic spacey laid back groove track.
Nice stuff. Cool music….
Check out the record label web site at: http://www.fangrecords.com
Reviewed by Scott Heller