Coyote Oldman - Thunder Chord (1990)

"Thunder Chord presents Coyote Oldman's most developed music in a continuum mixing flutes and their reverberating timetrails into new harmonies, transporting listeners to a deeper world. Like most authentic spacemusic, it "weaves a gentle spell of calm and profound peacefulness. Coyote Oldman's music echoes across the plains like a haunted memory carried on the winds of the past."

- John Diliberto, CD Review writer and producer of Echoes (NPR national music service)

A chance meeting over a handmade wooden flute at an Oklahoma crafts fair, the discovery of a shared interest in indigenous music of the Americas, and a perfectly complementary working relationship gave birth to the cohesive identity of Coyote Oldman.

Though they employ native American instruments and iconography in their recordings, both members of the Coyote Oldman team have only fractional American Indian ancestry. Nor are they traditional ethnic romanticists. In fact, behind the effortless sounding surface of their music you'll find a pair of dedicated, relentless, unorthodox experimentalists.

Maybe just living on the rolling prairies of the American heartland opens the ear to the subtle harmonies, the soothing continuities, and the dramatic spaces of this music.

Like most authentic spacemusic, you can hear this album on several levels. As a quiet background it "weaves a gentle spell of calm and profound peacefulness." Sit down and listen on earphones or loud enough to fill up your room, and you're only a neuro-shift away from serious time and space travel. Somewhere in between, it's "haunting," "ethereal," "mysterious."

We don't have the right language for this yet, but every reviewer attempts to pin down the mysterious aura, the atmosphere Coyote Oldman creates a virtual environment so seamless that it takes the most determined analytical effort to focus on the individual components of the sound, only to be pulled back immediately into the larger image.

BARRY STRAMP and MICHAEL GRAHAM ALLEN have recognized that to carry an ancient sound back to the present you have to master the contemporary vehicle. With cool passion and without romanticizing its source material, Thunder Chord presents their most developed music and most sophisticated sound, in a continuum extending from the distant keening of a single flute to the massive thunderwaves of a ten foot sheet of pure titanium. These sonic alchemists mix flutes and their reverberating timetrails into new harmonies, transporting listeners to a deeper world, singing a pure and timeless emotional language elegantly enveloped in a 3-D digital ambiance.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Coyote Oldman - Ascent (5:06)
1.02 - Coyote Oldman - Thunder Chord (5:29)
1.03 - Coyote Oldman - Turtle Island (6:22)
1.04 - Coyote Oldman - Medicine Flute (4:21)
1.05 - Coyote Oldman - Planting (3:18)
1.06 - Coyote Oldman - Field of Clouds (10:36)
1.07 - Coyote Oldman - Wind Shadows (3:02)
1.08 - Coyote Oldman - Shining Prairie (4:15)