Amarok

robingia@eresmas.net

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Mainly composed by Robert Santamaria needless to say a lot of keyboards will slip into the original compositions. As happens so often with these kind of bands the music absorbs a lot of authentic Spanish elements holding the middle between folk and lush symphonic material. ‘At the park’ seems to be an older track which was composed way back in 1979 inspired by the film ‘Hiroshima mon amour’ hence the aggressive vocals of Carlos Galego. The marimba fuses nicely with the distorted guitar before a fierce organ sets in. I probably will never understand why the voice of a small child is inserted towards the end or it should be to serve as an excuse to end this song with a musical box type of atmosphere.

Spanish bands tend to take in a lot of Morish influences which is exactly what happens when Amarok delivers ‘Arabesca in 4 mov.’ Fuelled by ethnic percussion and swirling violin the song evolves giving way for flute and even didgeridoo in order to become trance-like. In fact the long instrumental flavour of the song contains a lot of acoustic beauty coming close to medieval themes combined with authentic Jethro Tull influences. During ‘Dreaming dreams’ Santamaria’s organplaying tends to be in the footsteps of Keith Emerson yet this happens only briefly. Once again tabla is introduced which in combination with Marta Segura’s voice and autoharp delivers yet again a fair amount of folky material. Once the clarinet sets in followed by jazzy saxophone you get material which could easily come from a band like Isildur’s Bane. Santamaria’s love for ethnic instruments is illustrated by means of ‘Duo for Tabla & Saz n° 1’ where he sees the possibility to fit the unique sound of both instruments in one new song.

An acoustic guitar combined with voice kind of automatically delivers the authentic feel of the native country as proves ‘Lullaby for the son of the earth’. And the love for Spain continues throughout ‘Where are you my love’. More daring with a dash of avantgarde innovation can be traced throughout ‘Austral landscapes’. Compiled out of five individual parts this is the longest track on the album. A dark repetitive piano pattern gives way for a more intimate nature governed by wonderful flute, strings and acoustic guitar. Especially the final part of the song is divine with a major role for both flute and violin. With ‘Where are you my love (conclusion)’ Amarok kind of delivers a ‘jig’ which could easily be from Minimum Vital. The album closes with a second version of Santamaria’s merging of tabla and saz.

Amarok delivers a fine album yet it combines two rather seperate worlds. On one side they try their hand at pure symphonic music with loads of Spanish elements whilst on the other hand they illustrate their love for ethnic material by introducing a fair amount of foreign elements. In the end you get two atmospheres instead of one vision so for a next album I’d love to see these two ideas merged into one.