Sound the All-Clear

... Though the album title signals the return of safety and peace following threat or danger, there's no modicum of turbulence about the album's content. In other words, Sound the All-Clear is not an exercise in ambient tranquility. Instead, it catalogues the composer's teeming and restless imagination, and documents an unpredictable and mercurial sound world that's hard to pin down and affix names to. Sound the All-Clear clearly exemplifies an openness on Campbell's part to all sonic possibilities.

A[ny] given piece sidesteps easy definition, as episodes of varying character appear within a single track. Sounds flutter into position and then just as quickly scamper away, whether they be bowed fiddles, kotos, music boxes, or otherwise, and pieces rarely settle for single, sustained moods. Take the eleven-minute “Imago” as an example. A true travelogue, it begins placidly with a slow electric piano intro, shifts to noise smatterings, violin sawing, returns to the electric piano for extreme tempo shifts, followed by metronomic plucks, bowed strings, and electric guitar ostinatos—and that's the first half only ... 

In “Ritual Waking, Ritual Sleepwalking,” the echoing tinkles of music box, glockenspiel, and vibes generate a star-like dreamscape until aggressive string flourishes flood the track with darker undertones, and in “North Wind,” icy exhales evoke the barren fields of a wintry St. Paul, Minnesota site ... The audiophile production quality Campbell and Blackburn bring to the recording enables every sound, no matter how small, to resound vividly ... '

-Textura

Christopher Campbell’s Sound the All-Clear starts  off with an amusing trompe l’oeil effect for the ear—-a choral folksong seemingly taken from a beat-up LP complete with surface noise and even a needle stuck in the groove. Next comes a droning squeeze-box overlaid with noisy mechanical squeaking and twitters, then a tessellation of jangling strings, long-held chimes, boinking glissandos, low sustained piano notes, and one lonely human cry marooned above the aboriginal landscape. 

And on it goes, like an aural Quay Brothers movie or a Guy Maddin soundtrack--one jerry-built mechanism or electronic birdsong or tribal ceremony after another, meandering along, sometimes by itself and sometimes cunningly layered, until gradually, or suddenly, replaced by another. Annotator (and Campbell’s teacher) George Tsontakis describes the work as a movie-like sequence of “sound poems” distilled from “blended essences”, which is probably a fancy way of saying it’s a sonic collage. Collage, however well it mimics the play of mind and memory, isn’t the kind of thing I usually enjoy. I’m not sure it even fits my definition of music. It seems too arbitrary, too easy, too detached, at once too silly and too arty. But dang if Campbell (who is also a film-maker) doesn’t somehow manage to keep the proceedings not only interesting, but suspenseful. What will come next, the listener keeps wondering, and what does come next is, miraculously, never disappointing. 

Sound sources--some modified into drones, some rattling along as looped ostinatos, some distorted or cut-and-pasted--include voices, piano, electric piano, music boxes, sheng, prepared koto, strings, electric guitar, PVC flutes, balloon bassoons, Aeolian harps, toys, and lithophones (whatever they are), and who knows what else. Each is presented with exceptional clarity; even the more involved sections seem uncluttered and airy. And despite so much timbral variety the mood is sustained and consistent: droll, cheery, gentle, wistful. As the title suggests: the danger is past. Let’s take a stroll, whether down memory lane or across the meadow. The whole world beckons, and we’re free to ramble as we will. 

Innova’s sonics are flat-out spectacular. The release is available both as a CD and as a three-sided, two-disc LP set. I played the LPs at the home of an audiophile friend with a quarter-million-dollar stereo system and the result was absolutely holographic in its immediacy and presence. It sounded great on my much more modest record player, too. Among its other attractions, Sound the All-Clear is destined to become an audiophile demonstration-disc classic.- Mark Lehman, American Record Guide

With the plunk of a turntable needle a chorus culled from history sings, getting stuck in a scratched record groove that is overtaken by the breathy wheeze of an ancient accordion. Thus begins this through-composed, informed work from composer Christoper Campbell, collaborating with a large group of talented multi-instrumentalists. Through 12 movements, many described in the liner notes in scene descriptions or like passages from the I Ching, Campbell takes the listener on a journey that melds modern sound experimentation with traditional compositional techniques, contemporary and archaic, making reference to Western and Eastern musics and a great deal in between. The orchestration is far reaching and eclectic, integrating acoustic performance using conventional and historic instrumentats alongside electronics and sampling. 

Campbell blends modern and arcane approaches from a variety of disciplines, formal and intuitive, which he co-opts and/or corrupts so that familiar sections morph into unexpected territory in elusive and surprising ways. An idle listener may find themselves lost, but attentive listening encounters a journey through a broadly encompassing sound world that will bring a sly chuckle to experienced ears. The album slips out its ideas, lulling one into complacency with a seemingly meandering interlude, then presenting a concrete passage - melodic, thematic, conceptual, rhythmic - before fading into the surroundings to again ruminate. There is a poetic sense to the works, never stuffy and certainly never predictable, paced in pensive ways that bring together an abundance of impressions, like a peaceful and oddly ornamented garden occasionally disturbed by an inquisitive bird drawing your attention. The effect is something like looking through a camera lens and changing the focus slowly from foreground to background as each image blurs and sharpens, though using geometrical axes of genre, location and era to create a three dimensional and mesmerizing continuity of sonic images. 

That is the charm and the brilliance of this release, and which keeps the music interesting but never overbearing. Campbell achieves this with both a broad palette of musical references, and with distinctive timbres through microphone techniques and subtle studio tricks. There is a great deal of character to each passage, at times overwhelming with a rush of rich dynamic, at times retreating to regroup for the next passage. 31 people are credited as participants without noting their respective instruments; Campbell explains that many of them played so many parts that it was unwieldy to list them all, which is not difficult to believe. He does say that the creation of this album was a great deal of fun, and from the results there can be no doubt of that, garnering a fascinating, deceptively rich, and compellingly intelligent release.- Phil Zampino. The Squid's Ear

"... a music of strings and pinging metal tines, presented with an almost documentary vividness. There’s something very ‘uncomposed’ in feeling here, yet without the intense concentration of improvisation either. It’s a beautifully relaxed, almost accidental vibe, like having great musicians on a teabreak in your workshop."- Tim Rutherford-Johnson, The Rambler

"Campbell’s modern sound experimentation oscillates between the comforting and the exotic, with occasional creepy moments. A calm pastoral scene is set, and suddenly you’re thrown into a room with bells strewn across the floor. Sounds leap from the stereo, as the composer’s abstract orchestration seems more intent on audiophilic sculpture than melody. But this mini adventure has its rewards. By the time the warm textures of “Home” roll around, you feel renewed and ready for another trek."- Mia Clarke, Time Out Chicago