CD Review: Eyvind Kang's 'The Narrow Garden'

Eyvind Kang
The Narrow Garden
Ipecac

The Northwest, USA-based composer, performer, and musician extraordinaire, Eyvind Kang, celebrates classical, Middle Eastern, and avant-garde/jazz rhythms and melodies with his latest release, The Narrow Garden. Eyvind is also an accomplished erhu player, violinist, and tuba player. Neo-classical upbringing aside, Eyvind creates beautiful palettes of aural color that emanate from the album with ease and grace. In fact, an angelic undertone is featured on "Pure Nothing," which contains female choral sounds and neo-classical and new age leanings not completely unlike the music of Enya. On "Forest Sama'i," Eyvind tackles Middle Eastern and Persian musicalities, which seem right at home on this album. The quirky, avant-garde masterpiece, "Usnea," showcases Eyvind's knack for creating intricate, unusual, and diverse compositions. In this case, the song wanders dangerously close to experimental realms with strings, flutes, and metallic embellishments without electronic accompaniment. The operatic vocals of "Mineralia" and the cinematic, neo-classical/ambient nature of "The Narrow Garden," evokes the works of Steve Roach, Brian Eno, Enya, Vangelis, and others to be named in the future. The Narrow Garden seems right at home straddling the musical worlds of neo-classical, Middle Eastern, spiritual, avant-garde, experimental, and new age. ~ Matthew Forss