There is almost no improvisation in new age music today

But in Harlan Mark Vale’s brand new album, The House of Many Mansions, there is plenty of space and room for improvisation. With a few mostly improvised notes, master pianist Vale fills all the rooms of the mansions with music, expression and colors. He shows that improvisation is the key to truly divine music.

I must admit that Vale’s previous solo piano effort, Bright Angel, is one of my all-time favorite titles. I make sure to always have it with me, on my iPod, living room CD-player, PDA and PCs. I love it for the way it creates a world of its own in sound while I listen to it – much like Tony Scott’s album mentioned above. This year’s release is a little warmer and brighter than…well… oddly enough (refering to the name), Bright Angel. 

It is always a good idea to listen to what an artist says about his or her album. Harlan Mark Vale says:

The House of Many Mansions was inspired by the metaphor that each ‘mansion’ is another aspect within the “dwelling places” of consciousness. These portraits of the infinite interior life are the sweet fragrances of the Divine Mystery embodied in us all.

I think it is wonderful to find an album that is so close to the artist’s intention. The opening track Doors of Surrender is like an album in itself; the 12min30sec long piece is like a walk into a dream mansion, where you go through a door and an enormous, beautifully decorated hall (in red and gold, like the cover), only to find a new door is waiting at the end of the hall. It is simply marvelous, an outstanding performance by a master at work. Since it is improvisation, that’s what it is; a performance just as much as it is a track on an album.  

Track two is the title track. It is highly melodious and positive, with a very nice, 7 minute long build-up. The best word to describe it would be “colorful”. Another simply amazing song is the enigmatically named Forgiveness – Allowing the Circling Planes to land – which is not surprisingly the most dramatic song on the album. And yes, the plane lands safely after some quite heavy turbulence.   

Harlan Mark Vale’s albums are never easy listening, and that is also the case with the House of Many Mansions. It is not background music, but demands active listening.

But it is worth it; this album has given this reviewer one of the most rewarding listening experiences ever. I find that there is this almost magical quality to Vale’s music that just captivates the listener. Even if you are not into solo piano music at all, you will experience that the House of Many Mansions is something quite different. Give it a go, and you’ll might get a glimpse of the Divine Mystery. Hearing truly IS believing.

Sample the album here. It is available in high quality FLAC or 320k mp3 (and other formats as well). Click here to visit Harlan Mark Vale’s homepage.

When talking about space music one cannot help thinking about the sound of analogue synths of the 70s and 80s, masterly done by Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre and Vangelis.

This is not such an album. Eternus Conscientia rather has the high pitched glass/ice sound of modern VST synths – which is also nice, but more sterile (but so is space, one can argue). Like Vale’s previous albums, this one is also heavily improvised.

In this setting improvisation is a very nice effect, making it more alive, in a contrast to most sequenced space music albums that have the precision of modern computers.   

The album has six tracks with beautiful, otherworldly sounding names – like Ingressus Counstituo Prodigium and Valens Laetor; unique titles for sure. There are no real melodies here, but plenty of melodic segments that come and go. The key word here is atmosphere. Most of the tracks have a pleasant, warm sound – while other are more icy. My favorite track is Appareo Ex Informis, which has that larger-than-life feel of Vangelis’ music.

The only thing that is missing, is that you don’t get a feel of just how great a pianist and keyboardist mr. Vale is (like you get on his piano albums). But the arrangement is tasteful and professional in all respects. The sound quality is, as expected, very good.

Eternus Conscientia is a must-have album for the space music enthusiast – or anyone who is tired of waiting for space tourism. This is your ticket while here on Earth! Eternus Conscientia is as beautiful as it is vast, and offers almost endless replay possibilities.

Sample the album on Amazon.

But don’t get me wrong; Bright Angel is not an easy album. It demands attention. There is a lot of improvisation in Harlan Mark Vale’s piano works, and you have to tune your ears to it. This is not background music. But when you take the time to listen – to explore the world of the angels – you are rewarded.

The title track, Bright Angel, is the perfect introduction to Vale’s style. The first sharp tones grip your attention at once. For the first 4 minutes you can hear and feel the improvisation; it is like a river of sound. I guess this is where a few listeners will quit, because of the lack of melody and consistency. But if you close your eyes and let your subconsciousness do the work, you will see that this is not random notes. Suddenly more and more elements of a melody emerge. And when it does, your mind reacts. The intertwining melodies on this first track are truly beautiful, and the piano sounds divine; the last 3 minutes are tones from heaven itself.

Track number two is called Buddha Temple. The first seven minutes are gentle and you can hear some Asian influences in the use of sharp and flat notes. For me it is like seeing the Buddha Temple manifest itself out of a fog. The structure is built by 4 minutes of powerful melodic elements. The piano is beautifully played, and definitely shows how talented Harlan Mark Vale is. The ending is quiet. Suddenly the Buddha Temple disappears into the fog it came from.

World of Good is track number 3. The atmosphere is positive and light from beginning to end, so it is easy to understand why it has such a name. Most of the song is played in a gentle way, but some parts in the middle are more powerful. The song ends with a pleasant shower of tones. Warm and uplifting at the same time.

Decisions & Fate is a dramatic song. Some elements are dark, other lighter. Here is room for the feelings of both defeat and greatness. It is interesting to hear how fast Vale can change from one theme to the next.

Track number 5, The White Phase, is like a winter day. You can almost see the falling snow and feel the cold on your skin. But it not a dark song; it has a positive vibe. After all, winter is only sleep and not death. Soon spring will come knocking on the door. This is what I feel this song is communicating.

The last part of the album is the Intuition Suite. It is divided into three songs; Delivered Fresh From Eternity, Touched By Infinite Possibility and Manifestations of the Heart. Here Harlan Mark Vale goes much deeper into his artistic project. The three tracks have the same form; an intro with improvisation, and then beautiful melodic elements. There is a weightless feeling here, which make them perfect for meditation and relaxation. I just have to point out the great sounding names on these tracks. They are very poetical, don’t you agree?

The quality of the recording is very good. You can hear that it is not a studio recording. But I think that this gives the album a more authentic feeling. After all, piano music is live music.

Bright Angel is not uncomplicated or easy. But at the same time it is perhaps the most relaxing music I have ever heard. When you buy this album, you are not only getting beautiful music – you are also getting an instant meditation kit; press play and your mind takes off. Since large parts of the songs are improvisation, the replay possibilities are almost endless. You don’t get tired of these songs easily – and when you are finished listening, you know that you have been touched by an angel.

* You have had a lot of experience with other instruments that the piano. Please describe your “return” to the piano and the creation of Bright Angel.

Harlan: I am a percussionist. I play drums, synthesizer and piano. My formal musical training was in 20th Century Composition, Electronic Music and Audio Engineering at The Evergreen State College. There I immersed myself in the electronic creation of sound fundamentals using the Buchla 200/300 modular synthersizer in their electronic music studios. Studying the techniques of the avant garde textural sonarities I became familiar with these abtract and experimental elements at the boundary of “music”. At the same time I was still performing solo improvised piano concerts as I had done since grade school.

After performing at my church last year I was asked if I had a piano CD. It suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t done a piano recording since 1978. At the same time I had started a new job working for the Grand Canyon Railway as a passenger service attendant. During my lunch hour I would go up to the El Tovar hotel and play piano. Over a few months I developed a body of work which is now known as the Bright Angel CD.

My original intention was to create a contempory interpretation of the Grand Canyon but after capturing the magnitude of grandure associated with this seventh natural wonder of the world it became something much more than that. So not only were some of these compositions titled after geological features within the Grand Canyon, they were outward representations of the Divine creativity inherant in all of us, that is the connection to the Source. So my task as a performer is to tap into the Source, get out of the way and let the expression of “automatic writting” come forth unincumbered. My joy is to experience it enfolding before me.

I also believe that with the piano, it is a voice with which the public is comfortable. After composing and performing electronic music for decades, with well over a hundred albums in my discography, none of them has ever come close to the positive response that I have had with Bright Angel.

* You have also played improvisational jazz. Do you think this affects the way you work with music?

Harlan: Unquestionably. Working within the free jazz improvisation paradigm is and had been very exhilarating for me. Working with some of the finest musicians in the Pacific Northwest has encouraged that emensely. I performed with The New Art Orchestra from Seattle in the mid 1980s. This was a collection of players of all backgrounds and proficiency levels ranging from street musicians to soloists in the Seattle Symphony. With 17 – 25 performers we would take the stage and completely improvise the entire show. When it didn’t work it was a chaotic dog pile of sound, however when it did work, it was truely magical.

The secret was in the “listening” and the “placement” of your sonic contribution to the collective soundscape. I believe that this is ear / heart / spirit / hand training at it’s finest. I still utilize this technique in everything I do, whether it’s as a soloist or with an ensemble.

My approach to the piano is one of a percussionist that uses the piano as a polyphonic harmonic cannon. I use the piano keyboard as a controller to sound notes in any way or order, rather than using traditional piano techniques.

* According to your homepage, the album title Bright Angel came about after spending time at the Grand Canyon. How much of your musical inspiration comes from nature?

Harlan: Some of my first meaningful spiritual moments came from natural beauty. Naturalism is a common starting point for people to begin to appreciate the wonders of creation. My music is a documentation of my own personal growth. And each composition is a signpost of that journey up to the present time. Like I said earlier, Bright Angel is not only a peak in the middle of the Grand Canyon, for me it is a metaphor for that Divine spark inside of us that pulls us toward the ineffable; our spiritual evolution, and reminds us where we came from and why we are here.

* Dr. David Hawkins’ consciousness scale sounds very interesting. Tell us about Bright Angel‘s healing qualities.

Harlan: Dr. David R Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. is an internationally renowned psychiatrist, physician, researcher, and pioneer in the fields of consciousness research and spirituality. He writes and teaches from the unique perspective of an experienced clinician, scientist, and mystic and is devoted to the spiritual evolution of mankind. Over 250,000 kinesiological calibrations spanning 30 years of multiple research studies conducted by The Institute for Spiritual Research, Inc., have defined a range of values corresponding to well-recognized attitudes and emotions. These values can also be obtained from signatures, hand writing, art work and music and the like, that are infused with the vibrational content of the person created it.

Dr. Hawkins’ book, Power vs. Force provides a detailed explanation of this consciousness scale. Using this scale, we have calibrated Bright Angel at well over 700, which is the level of enlightenment or pure consciousness. People we have muscle tested using Bright Angel always test stronger, both while the music is playing and afterward for a period of time. I would encourage people to test it for themselves and email me their results to hmv@harlanmarkvale.com.

Another interesting thing is that I test significantly lower when I’m not creating music and I test stronger when I am.

Dr. Hawkins publications can be found at: www.veritaspub.com

* To record piano is not easy, but the sound on Bright Angel is very good. Please tell about the the people and equipment involved.

Harlan: The music that I wanted to capture for the Bright Angel project has a lot of space in it. Most of the “activity” occurs after the notes have been sounded; a sympathetic harmonic interaction within the strings and around the harp. Some of these wave forms have wavelengths that are longer than the length of the piano itself. Instead of making a recording in a traditional way that mics the hammers over the strings that yield a percussive type of sound, I chose to blend a quadraphonic field of two sets of stereo images; one set close to the piano, over the sound holes of the harp for the primary image, and the other away and under the piano for a reflective and distant stereo image. The result is a wide image field with lots of natural movement to it.

For the primary stereo field microphones I chose a Mojave Audio MA-200 large diaphragm tube condenser mic for the bass strings and a Neumann TLM-103 transformerless condenser mic based on the U-87 Capsule for the treble strings. For the distant stereo image microphones I chose the Grundig GDSM 211. It is hand made in Gremany and uses a bi-naural stereo X/Y configuration. For auxiliary preamps I used a True Systems P-Solo and a Aphex 107 Tubessence. These were fed directily into the board of a Roland VS-2480 digital workstation.

I interviewed several engineers here in Prescott, Arizona and decided upon Mark Echard of Heavenly Sound Studio (928.899.0243 http://www.heavenlysoundstudio.com/) to help me with a remote recording at The Yavapai College Performance Hall. I coordinated with the theater manager to rent the hall the day after the Vienna Christmas Orchestra performed. They had the 1923 Model D Steinway & Sons grand piano freshly tuned and left it in the middle of the stage for us. So we came in the next day and recorded about 2 hours of material in under 4 hours; out of which the Bright Angel CD was born.

* What is your opinion on the music industry today? Will you continue as an unsigned artist, or will you sign a record deal?

Harlan: The music industry has changed and expanded since I began my solo career in 1974, back in the ‘analog’ days. In one way the mainstream industry, and it’s 5 headed record label machine, has compromised the creative artist into a clone of the industry idea of what the public wants. On the other hand there have been quite a few artists over the years that have successfuly navagated these waters, establishing new creative ways to do music and business. They have paved the way for others to follow.

For years I produced my music under my own independent label. With the advancement of the internet it is much easier to produce, publish and distibute my work using this vehicle. The electronic press kit for marketing, booking gigs and other details of production, is a wonderful thing. I am in direct contact with the people I need to communicate with almost instantaneously, just like you. Instead of cold calls, ‘shmoozing’ with club owners and wondering for months if my album made it to the desk or the trash can with no response, I have the opportunity to address my intended market directly. This is very efficient and I am very grateful for it.

As far as any record deal goes, I am open if the right offer comes my way.

* Thank you very much for your time. Keep creating great music!

Harlan: It is my great pleasure. I honor you and thank you for this opportunity. Namaste.

Photos of Harlan Mark Vale by Kathreen Drager.