Cheap Horses & Trees (Music) (Ginger Baker) Price

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Customer Reviews of Horses & Trees

Short But Sweet
The major shortcoming of this release is that it only has six songs. I wish it had twenty. This is the album that turned me on to Ginger Baker's solo efforts and subsequently catapulted me from a casual appreciation of his work into something bordering on obsessive fandom. These instrumental tracks provide six very different and unique musical landscapes. The first track has a definite energy behind it, a solid and driving beat that effectively sums up the drumming on this project--steady, mature, never overpowering--in short, what good drumming is all about. The second track is my personal favorite, a sparse and haunting work. Yet another track, "Mountain Time", is a wonderful rhythmic exercise featuring precisely the kind of strong percussion you'd expect from this artist. The drumming is controlled while still revealing definite flashes of the deftness and intuition that has kept Baker such a compelling drummer all these years. Each track is enhanced by backing musicians of the finest calibre, all wrapped up in a beautiful clear mix that works particularly well with percussion, highlighting crystalline cymbals, thundering toms and a crisp, bright snare. The drums sound immaculate. So does nearly everything else on this CD. It's admittedly not for everyone. People who are accustomed to having all of the musical instruments on a recording being drowned out by caterwauling vocals will probably want to sit this one out. Here, the instruments are not being overshadowed; they're allowed to freely roam and wander where they will. It's an intriguing album that may prove to be at odds with the tastes of mainstream music fans, but then again, who cares what they're listening to? If you want something a bit different, this might be the thing.

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Mighty rumblings
Bill Laswell produced this great piece, hence his handwriting is all over the place; in fact, it really gives the record its solemnity and power. Baker's strong and steady beat weaves a strong mat upon which various ethnic-jazzy tunes can evolve and play. Words cannot describe - check it out!