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Jocelyn Pook: Untold Things

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Real World Records
Released: 2001.03.27
Time:
 50:23
Category: Classical
Producer(s): Jocelyn Pook
Rating: ********.. (8/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.jocelynpook.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2001.03.19
Price in €: 15,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Dionysus (Jocelyn Pook) - 5:00
[2] Red Song (Jocelyn Pook) - 4:08
[3] Upon This Rock (Jocelyn Pook) - 5:15
[4] Yellow Fever Psalm (Jocelyn Pook) - 5:00
[5] Hell, Fire and Damnation (Jocelyn Pook) - 5:20
[6] Take off Your Veil (Jocelyn Pook) - 4:56
[7] The Last Day (Jocelyn Pook) - 4:57
[8] Saints and Sinners (Jocelyn Pook) - 4:11
[9] Butterfly Song (Jocelyn Pook) - 3:39
[10] Calls, Cries and Clamours (Jocelyn Pook) - 3:28
[11] Saffron (Jocelyn Pook) - 4:29

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Jocelyn Pook - Viola, Piano, Keyboards, Vocals, Drum Programming

Melanie Pappenheim - Vocals
Parvin Cox - Vocals
Jonathan Peter Kenny - Vocals
Manickam Yogeswaran - Vocals, Tabla, Gangira
Jackie Norrie - Violin
Sally Herbert - Violin
Ian Betton - Violin
Kelly McCusker - Violin, Vocals
Annie Stephenson - Violin
Clare Finnimore - Viola
Clarie Orsler - Viola
Sophie Harris - Cello
Caroline Lavelle - Cello
Jub - Bass
Harvey Brough - Add. Arranging, Psaltery, Vocals, Drum Programming
Abdullah Chhaddeh - Quanum
Dragan Aleksic - Chest Drumming
Clarie Lewis - Drum Programming

Ben Findlay - Engineer
Clarie Lewis - Add. & Ass. Engineer
Kevin Killen - Mixing
Bob Ludwig - Mastering

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


2001 CD Real World 50781

Jocelyn Pook composed the score for Stanley Kubrick's final film 'Eyes Wide Shut'.



Earning raves for her electric frisson of classical and contemporary influences on the score of Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, Pook is taking center stage after serving as string player-arranger for Peter Gabriel, P.J. Harvey, Morrissey, and other English artists.

This densely atmospheric album blurs musical boundaries, as medieval instruments collide with Middle-Eastern rhythms, talking drums, and dynamic vocals. Juxtaposing angelic plainsong with ancient Arabic ululations, and playground chatter with Ennio Morricone-like male chorus, Pook conjures an otherworldly ambience of poignant yearning and ecstatic release. Her milieu isn't walking the razor's edge between the sacred and profane; rather, she jubilantly leads listeners into profoundly moving side excursions deep into apocalyptic territory. Tunes such as the heavenly soprano showstopper "Dionysus" and "Hell, Fire, and Damnation" posture in eccentric opposition to the earthy, Yeminite-influenced "Upon This Rock" and "Take Off Your Veil"; yet it all works -- superbly -- thanks to Pook's consummate ability to balance dervish-like dance beats with more spacious, tranquil tracks.

Another neat trick is her use of vocalization. While many lyrics heard here sound like Latin or an obscure Laplander dialect, it turns out they are not words at all. Pook has created unique "languages" for several tunes, as well as recorded texts backwards for a strangely peaceful and organic quality that haunts the soul. Be warned: This is beautiful music for the brave.

PJ Birosik
CDNOW Contributing Writer



Nach der Klassik-Ausbildung an der Guildhall School of Music and Drama zu Beginn der 80er Jahre tourte Jocelyn Pook zunächst einmal drei Jahre lang mit Jimmy Somervilles Popgruppe The Communards. Dann schrieb sie Filmmusik für Derek Jarmans Kino-Meisterwerk Caravaggio (1986), lieferte die Klangbegleitung für die Theaterproduktion My Body, Your Body und war mehrfach als TV-Komponistin tätig (beispielsweise bei der BBC-Serie Mad About Music). Anschließend arbeitete sie mit Popkünstlern wie Peter Gabriel, PJ Harvey und Nick Cave und verfasste den Sound-Score für Stanley Kubricks letzten Film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

Diese Aufzählung macht deutlich, dass sich Jocelyn Pook mit Vorliebe als Grenzgängerin zwischen E- und U-Musik, zwischen eingängigem Alltagspop und hehrer Kunst betätigt. Auch auf ihrem Soloalbum Untold Things führt sie den Balanceakt fort. Sie schlägt hier mit viel Erfindungsgabe Brücken zwischen den unterschiedlichsten Stilrichtungen von Worldmusic über Klassik und Avantgarde bis Newage.

Da verknüpft die Engländerin im Eröffnungstitel "Dionysus" mittelalterlich anmutende Vokallinien wirkungsvoll mit repetitiven Mustern aus der Minimal Music. Da kombiniert sie im "Red Song" Mosaiksteinchen aus Giuseppe Verdis Requiem, Tataren-Volksmusik und weißrussischen Gesang zum farbenfroh schillernden Klangkaleidoskop. Da koppelt sie in "Hell, Fire And Damnation" Liegeklänge eines Streicherensembles und Passagen, die an die lateinische Mess-Liturgie erinnern, zum geradezu religiösen Klangerlebnis. Und da führt sie in "The Last Day" den Gesang jemenitischer Juden und die Partitur eines klassizistischen Streichquintetts zur todtraurigen Elegie zusammen.

So erschafft Jocelyn Pook auf dieser Soloplatte ein ums andere Mal einen mystischen, sehr geheimnisvollen Sound, wie er einem in dieser Art nie zuvor begegnet ist. Sie versteht es hervorragend, den Zuhörer mit ungewöhnlichen Klangverbindungen zu verzaubern und fasziniert am laufenden Band mit höchst kunstfertigen Kompositionsideen. Das sind Soundscapes voller Spiritualität und emotionalem Tiefgang!

Harald Kepler - Amazon.de



"I wanted this new record to reflect the live work I've been doing for the last couple of years," says the classically trained, thirty-something Londoner of her forthcoming album 'Untold Things' - one that just so happens to feature a superlative string-laden track entitled 'Hell, Fire and Damnation'. Pook sees the recording as a natural progression from her long association with Real World, where she's been a keen participant in the legendary creative jams that are Recording Weeks and worked as a string player and arranger for Peter Gabriel. (As a former member of The Communards and co-founder of the all-female sextet Electra Strings she has also helped flesh out the sounds of PJ Harvey, Paul Weller, Morrissey, Nick Cave and Siouxsie Sioux).

Where her previous albums, 1997's 'Deluge' and this year's 'Flood', were written specifically for theatre and film - the former for Canadian dance company O Vertigo, the latter for Stanley Kubrick's 'Eyes Wide Shut' - 'Untold Things' is very much Pook's own creative vision. Encouraged by Real World's penchant for blurring boundaries, she's channelled her trademark combination of classicism and innovation into an exhilarating gem of an album, one which pulls off that rare coup of putting listeners in touch with their deeper feelings. 'Untold Things' will, no doubt, be the source of many an epiphany. You could say that it has a spiritual, even magical, quality, as befits one who is constantly changing artistic shape - and whose surname is the Celtic word for fairy.

Pook's soft speech, translucent skin and Pre-Raphaelite curls might fit the stereotype of a classical musician (and, if you like, a latter-day Titania), but they belie a background in performance-based work that's seen her create 'atmospheres' from found objects like answer-machine messages and corrugated iron. And though Pook insists she is proudly rooted in the formal, classical music tradition, she still hankers after the cutting edge. Her influences - Laurie Anderson, Steve Reich, Holger Czukay and her friend Michael Nyman - are also shared by her like-minded ensemble. "Most of my string section are friends who go way back and who, like me, are also composers. I tend to work with people I've got chemistry with and then build around what they play. That means all sorts of instruments and voices creep in."

"There's a juxtaposition of vocal styles," states Pook, who has always favoured eccentric opposites. On 'Untold Things', she pits her English choral plainsong and early music leanings against multi-ethnic traditions, and offsets the spacious, tranquil nature of some tracks with the pulsing, dervish-style rhythms of others. It turns out the vocals are not words at all. "Because words are so incredibly powerful," Pook explains, "I tend not to use them. I prefer to treat voices like instruments. So we've used a made up language on two of the songs; there's one piece which developed from a phrase Parvin Cox once sang to me over the phone. On others I've recorded texts backwards, because I love the strange, kind of uneasy quality you get. I find it really peaceful."

'Saffron' is the title track for 'In A Land of Plenty', a major new BBC TV drama series scheduled for January. "It's about a family who are my generation, born in the Sixties and growing up into the present day. It's very beautifully shot, very impressionistic, which is unusual for television" Pook states. But it started out as a poem written by a mother for her daughter, its lyrics reversed by Pook and Pappenheim before being featured in a short dance film. All of the songs on 'Untold Things' have been reshaped and sculpted to perfection. Or at the very least, as near to it as Pook will admit.

"I could go on fiddling with all these pieces for years," she grins. "But with what I've learnt over the past year, especially from doing 'Eyes Wide Shut', I've been able to go back and rework some of them. I'm more confident in what I'm doing now, which has really helped me to develop. And Stanley (Kubrick) was just so amazingly positive and flattering about my music. The experience of working with him was truly powerful."

"I'm not somebody who conceptualises," she offers. "I just do it and see the connections afterwards. I know people will think there's a religious element to this, which isn't something I want to comment on. But I do think there's a sense of faith, of loss and yearning, which is inherent in the music. Hopefilly, it moves you." And in keeping with her Celtic surname, Jocelyn Pook has made an album with translucent wings.

Jane Cornwell - www.realworld.on.net




Jocelyn Pook’s music for Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut earned broad critical acclaim for her eclectic fusion of classicism and unorthodoxy, evidenced earlier as a string player/arranger for Peter Gabriel, and in her work in the Communards and with PJ Harvey, Paul Weller, Morrissey, Nick Cave and Siouxsie Sioux.

Blurring boundaries, densely atmospheric -- provoking private epiphany, and invoking a sense of faith, loss and yearning - here is extraordinary music from an accomplished cellist and noted UK performance artist, whose wax effigy drips burning after her live concerts. Sculpted to perfection, UNTOLD THINGS is very much a pure creative vision -- melding obscure medieval instruments with strings, talking drums, and found sounds including bird song and children’s playground chatter -- and a stunning juxtaposition of voices, from sepulchral to plainsong to Persian to unintelligible and otherworldly. A transcendent listening experience.

www.realworldusa.com



...her most ambitious stand-alone work to date: 11 string-driven choral pieces (ululations and sampled Yemenite chants included) that inhabit the space between contemporary classical and new age - Ligeti meets Enya, sort of - with a wonderfully Byzantine choice of instrumentation (shaum, psaltery and qanun) too. Haunting but surprisingly accessible.

***.. - Q Magazine (UK)



Jocelyn Pook is what you might call a thoroughly Post-Modern composer...Like her fellow British composers Michael Nyman and Brian Eno, Pook, who trained as a viola player at the Guildhall, delights in breaching the boundaries between high art and popular culture. Her work glides effortlessly between classical, pop and world music, and incorporates elements of dance, film and theatre.

The Times (UK)
  

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