Track Listing

1. First Contact
2. Shadow Behind The Iron Sun
3. Attack Of The Glow Worm
4. Land Of Vendom
5. Icefall
6. Thunder Caves
7. Council
8. Warrior's Chant
9. Battle Cry
10. Wind Horse
11. Crossing The Bridge
12. Last Contact
13. Battle Cry

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #174846 in Music
• Released on: 2000-07-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 71 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
RCA's association with Evelyn Glennie has increasingly focused on what you might term "crossover" repertoire; combining styles and even music in a way that leads to new music and new approaches to performance. Or should do. Part of the problem with Shadow Behind the Iron Sun is its uncertainty as to what its trying to be. Glennie performs and improvises with customary flair, while Michael Brauer collaborates and produces on a similar "give and take" basis. Yet the (deliberate?) absence of common goals means that the results are patchy at best. Most of the tracks are strong on atmosphere and impact, but don't offer much for repeated listening. The longest track, "Land of Vendon", is a colourful sequence of dynamics and textures, which doesn't add up to a cohesive overall piece. "Battle Cry" throws in a range of samples and world-music resonance, and we're treated to the dubious pleasure of a "bonus mix", but to little substantial effect. Perhaps what's missing is an accompanying video, providing visuals to the audio in a way that Ryauchi Sakamoto has pioneered. On its own, Shadow... feels limited, even inhibited by its lack of focus. A pity, Glennie has few equals when it comes to technique and charisma. This disc has to be counted an under-achievement. --Richard Whitehouse

From Amazon.com
If you think the percussionist's role is merely to supply rhythmic backbone, you haven't encountered the phenomenon named Evelyn Glennie. The category-defying Scottish musician has spent her career pursuing the unique route of percussion virtuoso, turning music into an intensely hyperactive verb. Glennie's sound world encompasses a global, pan-cultural panoply of music makers in addition to the standard drum kit: watergongs, bamboo sticks, ceramic bells, car exhaust pipes, finger cymbals, thundersheet--to name a few from the arsenal she uses here (Glennie reportedly owns over 1,000 percussive instruments). Even in her interpretations of works by other composers--such as James MacMillan's Veni, Veni, Emmanuel or the Grammy-nominated Concerto for Percussion by Joseph Schwantner--Glennie scoops out plentiful opportunities for improvisation; but the concept of Shadow Behind the Iron Sun was to allow Glennie to lock herself up in her studio and improvise the entire album. With the help of her collaborator, pop mixmaster Michael Brauer, the result is a fantastically textured, mesmerizing adventure for the ears and the imagination. Despite a vague ambition to explore "as many moods as possible" (Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead was apparently the source for some of the picturesque titles here, such as "Attack of the Glow Worm" and "Wind Horse"), the variety and juxtaposition of colors evoke a cinematically gripping, almost synesthetic sense of atmosphere--yet another evolution of "program music" into the 21st century? Much of the fun is in experiencing sounds whose origin remains mysterious, as Glennie performs her one-woman-as-orchestra wonders. --Thomas May

Customer Reviews

She is like an Angel of Fire come amongst us
Evelyn Glennie is trans-human, an exemplar in the next stage of our evolution. Not only is she the supreme percussionist currently alive on on the planet, but her vision as a musician is utterly transcendental. She has a curious form of deafness, such that with her ears she hears the very high and very low portions of the audio spectrum and just noise in between. But sound for her is primarily a bodily phenomenon, attested to by the fact she plays in bare feet, the better to 'hear' what she is doing. Paradoxically this gives her a heightened sensibility to the sounds in the world that we take for granted.

This album is Evelyn improvisng with her huge array of instruments, many of which are bits and pieces she's picked up from building sites and factories, that she beats, bows and rubs in an endless variety of ways to produce a vast soundworld like nothing you've heard before, except perhaps in the most esoteric corners of ambient electronica. She's assisted by the producer Michael Bauer who uses various all manner of studio wizardry to craft Evelyn's raw input into something completely astonishing. A handful of other musicians provide discrete and tasteful supporting interjections here and there. The album is completely a-generic. It is not classical music, jazz or rock or anything else. Though it includes instruments from around the world it is not world music.

The album has one really long track - Land of Vendon - plus a dozen odd briefer tracks. The briefer tracks are all quite direct musical statements spanning the intense ferocity of Warrior Cry to the ethereal beauty of Windhorse, and points between. The longer track is a more evolving conceptual piece, for which I needed a few listens before coming to a judgement in terms of its overall satisfactoriness of form. However, despite certain discontinuites that seem to break it into a episodes my conclusion, is that it works just fine.

Another point is that this album is an audiophiles dream. I wouldn't bother putting this on your iPod because it's an album to be felt with the whole body, not just heard through the ears.

Fantastic Tribal Noise!!!!
This is a seminal work in the widening of the borders of music, the variety of instruments will bring back tribal memories from all around the world. You won't find any recognisable genre's here, but you will get the chance to experience the fury of the sounds of the world in a raw form. A very positive contributor to the future of music.