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CD Feature/ Viviana Guzman & Mark Takata: "Meditations for Flute"

  Tobias

Sometimes, all of a sudden and without obvious reason or rime, a strangely romantic mood takes hold of us and fills us with a sense of immense longing. On “Meditations for Flute”, this impulse of yearning and inexpicable desire has been given a name: “Canyon Solitude”.

The singular („flute“) of the album title and Viviana Guzman’s lonely silhouette against the evening sky are somewhat misleading in this respect – this, after all, is a fully-fledged collaboration between the Chilean globetrotter and West-Coast musician Mark Takata, in which these charismatic performers, unique and slightly detached from mainstream culture, push each other to new heights.

To fans of Guzman, this will come as yet another welcome diversification in a career which has been anything but the ordinary, freely floating from the world of classical music to the realms of contemporay South American composition and the Tango. Takata has not stepped into the limelight of international publications and worldwide touring yet, his approach of building a community of friends close to his home suggesting a need for an immediate and personal relationship with his audience. Their CVs may therefore not have all too much in common – and yet their minds are pitched to the same wavelength in telepathic precision.

Which is essential for “Meditations”, because any sign of miscommunication or disharmony would instantly shatter these fragile improvisations. Guzman and Takata do not engage in on-a-dime duets, instead trying to reach a point of unison, in which the minute differences between their styles turn into subtle embelishments and parts of a cohesive texture. Divided into solo pieces by both flutists and a string of group efforts involving well-dosed percussion, the album appears to have sprung from an implicit agreement on a theme or an ambiance, rather than on clearly spelled-out concepts.

This translates into a work of gentle progressions and fine timbral differences between Guzman’s flute and Takata’s Native American instrument, but also into a clear and tangible tension arch: From the opening statements from the artists, “Meditations for Flute” arrives at a warm combination of multi-instrumental homophony and discreet polyphony, then picks up pace thanks to shamanic drum pundings and comes to a temporary acme in the vivid seven minutes of “Half Moon Bay Sunset”. After that, the record slowly subsides into calmer waters, fading into the night with the closing “Blessing’s to you”.

The symbiosis between the more mysterious allusions of Mark Takata and the shining lucidity of Viviana Guzman is void of any cliches and filled with an unkitchy sense of romance. Sometimes, you can see yourself standing on the tops of that solitary canyon, but it’s not a picture postcard image, but a sort of archetype stored in your genes. If you feel that desire welling up from inside again, this is the soundtrack to satisfy the need.

By Tobias Fischer

Homepage: Viviana Guzman