Music Review: Rhys Chatham - A Crimson Grail (for 400 Electric Guitars)

The first thing to understand is that there are no drums. Well, not exactly—a lone cymbal pulses throughout the second movement, which culminates in some manic drumming buried in the depths of the sonic stew. But this is not toe-tappin' and/or head-bangin' Rhys Chatham like Guitar Trio, Die Donnergotter, or An Angel Moves Too Fast To See. Instead, think Charlemagne Palestine's marathon drones, Brian Eno's Discreet Music, or maybe Anton Bruckner's adagios... as played by 400 electric guitars.

Also consider that the experience and sheer spectacle (bordering on ritual) of 400 electric guitars performing in an enormous basilica at an all-night concert in Paris would be damn near impossible to capture on a recording. So just as the CD of Chatham's 100 guitar opus An Angel Moves Too Fast To See, as great as it is, surely pales in comparison to the actual concert, imagine the engineering difficulties presented by a group four times that size before an audience of 10,000 people.

What we end up with is this very raw, very "live," almost bootleg-ish document of the October 2005 performance of A Crimson Grail (Moves Too Fast To See) on the adventurous Table of the Elements label. And we should be thankful.

The first movement is surprisingly gorgeous and serene, as the guitarists coax shimmering chords from their instruments that resonate like some kind of massive spectral chorale. It's hard to believe that hundreds of electric guitars could be producing these awesomely beautiful, sometimes eerily choral waves of sound.

The next movement is somewhat darker, with that subtle cymbal pulse taking us from adagio to andante and the players repeating bell-like tones, chiming in a sonic haze and churning toward an apocalyptic (or is it triumphant?) conclusion. Chatham pulls out all the stops in the final movement, which slowly builds from a steady drone to an almost impossibly dense mass of rhythmic strumming.

The cheering audience is then rewarded with a final coda, as the "guitar army" intones one last gigantic, ecstatic chord—an electric "Amen"...

Article Author: SVF

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