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BETH CUSTER
In The Broken Fields Where I Lie (BC)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale
Beth Custer is very busy. On top of projects like the Club Foot Orchestra, Trance Mission, Clarinet Thing and Eighty Mile Beach, she composes for film, television, dance and performance pieces. In her spare time, she occasionally collects some of the best of all that and turns it into a "solo" album. In The Broken Fields Where I Lie is the second such collection, featuring work from 1994 t0 1999. If you've somehow missed her efforts, it's a terrific place to get started. Of course, with the volume and range of her work, it's almost impossible to stay current, so if you're already a fan, this is also a great place to catch up.
Among the 30 tracks on this self-produced CD you'll fine pieces from the Club Foot Orchestra, Clarinet Thing, Custer solo, Custer with various friends and co-conspirators, Custer writing for film, Custer writing for dance, Custer writing for the San Diego Rep and Custer writing for the Joe Goode Performance Group. She wrote, or had a hand in writing, each of the tracks, except Duke Ellington's "Echoes Of Harlem," which she arranged for Clarinet Thing, a quintet featuring three Bb and two bass clarinets. As I said, Beth Custer is very busy. And very talented.
If her compositions, arrangements, playing (various clarinets, keyboards, samples and flute) and singing weren't impressive enough (and they most emphatically are) her ability to assemble so many pieces of music created by a variety of ensembles for such diverse purposes into a fluidly cohesive compilation would suffice to amaze. She pulls it off impressively, producing an accessibly entertaining blend of avant-garde, world, classical, ambient and pop influences. It's a wonderful taste of the musical banquet that she's been serving up for the last five years.
Track List:
Carnyville * Phagocyte * Purdy Lily, Don't Die! * Brenda's Music Box * In The Broken Fields Where I Lie * Echoes Of Harlem * Rich Blanket Of Love * Stay Put, Here With Me * Tribal Duets * Petnapping * Don't Send Me Down That Hole! * Rough Rider * Hide Fox, And After All * Rest, Perturbed Spirit * To Sleep, Perchance, To Dream * Hamlet * Tango Me Not * Petnapping #2 * Clean Your Room * Stellar Glimmer * Going Hence, Coming Hither * Virtue * Sotto * Hannah's Groove * Spray Twinkle * Momus * Aristocratic Ruffian * The Passing Quartet * Throw Stones At A Can * I Will Be Sad In This Life * Brenda's Music Box, Too * In The Broken Fields Where I Lie, II
© 1999 - Shaun Dale