Arcane Candy

Philip Blackburn is a British-born, St. Paul, Minnesota-based composer who has been active since the 1980s, when he earned degrees at the Universities of Cambridge and Iowa. Best known as the director of Innova Recordings since 1996, for whom he most notably rescued Harry Partch’s long lost personal archives and released them as the Enclosure Series, Philip left Innova in 2020 to run the Neuma record label. In addition to producing over 400 Innova albums for other composers, Philip has also stuck his toe out into the spotlight as an environmental sound artist, releasing several solo CDs over the past two decades. The latest is a 2-CD set called Ordo that spans the entirety of Philip’s 40-year career.

Opening CD 1 in a most pleasing manner, “Weft Sutra” offers up a collection of ambient cloud puffery by way of bowed electric guitars and pleasantly plucked veena that will soothe your world-weary forehead. Very nice! “Ordo” mines a similar artery, with the addition of singing and electronics. “The Song of the Earth” emanates some odd, eerie vibes via vibraphone and wind harp, while “The Sound of a Going in the Tops of the Mulberry Trees” unfortunately takes a 90-degree turn into a free-improv-like parking lot with start and stop dynamics that are as fun to listen to as wearing a hair shirt in a hot tar pit. With its sparse piano melodies plinked over a rhythmicon pulse, “Lilacs and Lightning” resumes the pleasantries of the first three tracks, but then “Albi” has to ruin everything again by forcing a violin quartet to saw out some homely, overlapping melodies.

In “A Cambridge Musick,” a drunk staggers around an alley in an attempt to get the festivities on disc 2 underway as an ensemble playing harpsichord, violin, cello, recorder and bass drum produce exactly the kind of start-stop-start-stop dynamics that would cause a “Rite of Spring”-style riot if played a century before. Bowed percussion, pinging pencils on strings and a speaking voice populate “Over Again” while Foghorn Leghorn blasts a bunch of ship horns over a harbor while a lady sings during “More Fools Than Wise.” “Sonata Homophobia” pits a flute player against brainwave-triggered audio comprised of toxic radio talk show spewage, then segues into a super mellow instrumental section. Next up, a speaker can be heard “Unearthing” layers of staggered guitar, violin, flute, etc, while another ensemble gets “Stuck” offering up a couple of minutes of yet more start-stop-start-stop blat. A duo on clarinet and piano end the program with the oddly titled “Air: Air, Canary, New Ground,” the title of which seems to be little more than a spelling and punctuation test for reviewers like me.

Overall, I enjoy Philip’s environmental sound art works more than his instrumental compositions. If I were in charge of this project, I would have divided the 2-CD set into two completely separate releases. I would have put tracks 1,2,3, and 5 from disc 1, and tracks 2 and maybe 3 from disc 2 onto one ambient CD. Then I would have released all of the other tracks from both discs as an album full of sounds that are more difficult and challenging.

Label: Neuma Catalog Number: Neuma 189 Format: 2-CD Packaging: Mini-LP tri-fold Tracks: CD 1: 6, CD 2: 7 Total Time: CD 1: 77:29, CD 2: 61:10 Country: United States Released: 2023 More: Corporeal, Innova, Official, PRX, YouTube

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