Spirit Dance

Description

Keyboardist Peter Buffett, son of famed investor Warren Buffett, distant cousin of Parrothead
Jimmy Buffett
, also has ties–strictly creative–to
Mike Oldfield
and other leading lights of the pre-techno school of progressive electronic music. This was apparent in his sterling 1987 debut,
The Waiting
, where Buffett extracts huge murals of color from his Synclavier by mixing ambience with mild aggression, then glazing it all with a thin patina of melancholy. Alas, no subsequent recording quite matched the original’s cohesiveness–until this evolving project arrived 10 years later.
Spirit Dance
, which later spawned a stage production and live recording (
Spirit
), is Buffett’s most persuasive treatment of a favorite theme: the survival of an honorable Native American spirit within a progress-at-any-cost culture. Contributors range from Chief Hawk Pope of the Ohio Shawnee (whose musical influence can be found on the
Pocahontas
soundtrack) to flautist
Douglas Spotted Eagle
to a German choir to inventive drummer Dan Chase, who earns co-songwriter credits on two of the disc’s best moments–the groove-guided “An Eagle Above” and the title track, which cries out for a dance remix. Imaginative rhythms, atmospheric choral passages, judiciously positioned Native chant and drumming, articulate guitar work (from three guitarists) and splendid sound design from Buffett yields a hip, subdued, very appealing journey that concludes with its lone vocal track, a lovely,
Tori Amos
-like lament for the present. Worthwhile listening.
–Terry Wood