Basin & Range 2005 DVD $20.
I recently returned from a colorful journey of sound, mind, and vision
across some far-flung corners of the wild and sparkling West. The covered
ground included California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. And I
didn't burn one gallon of gas.
The armchair tour was guided by Arthur Durkee through his new DVD "Basin &
Range." This montage of Stick music and still photography begins wherever
you want it to. From the main screen, just click on one of four itineraries
and you're off.
The short films, each about 10 minutes, use beautifully rendered cross-fades
and graphic collages to pull you through centuries of natural beauty: desert
landscapes and rock formations, ancient shamanic light, and Durkee's own
labyrinths of vision, timbre, and poetry.
The music is mostly Stick, flavored with flutes, percussion, and violin.
The mix is deep stereo, a lush scape in itself, with haunting ECM-like
distance and otherworldly spaciousness. This is truly organic sound and
imagery, painted with the eclectic brush of a well-traveled soul. Deeper
eyes and ears will detect a subtle commentary, and the messenger's gentle
yet striking language leaves plenty of room for you to interpret the
message for yourself.
- John Edmonds
It's an artistic joy to watch, with an abundance of photographic art and
evocative Stick music. There are four themes, including "Basin" with
striking shots of New Mexico landscapes, "Visions" with superimposed art,
charts and photography, "Gateway Arches" with dramatic rock formations,
and "Western Lands", also with a travelling theme.
Art's Stick music is mostly looped and overdubbed, and his graphic art
also has this kaleidoscopic quality - natural scapes merging and
superimposed with "prepared" scapes, with fantastic drawings, with
geometry of the mind. Galaxies, flowers, bodies, rocks, all blend with
his mountain range of music to express an artist's opinion about the
universe of everything. I don't believe that Art can ever avoid making
these opinions known.
- Emmett Chapman