By the Dawn's Early Light

Track Listings

1. Poem: Aztec Hotel

2. Boy About 10

3. Arcadia

4. Dead Horse Alive With Flies

5. Photo of Santiago Mckinn

6. Corpse at the Shooting Gallery

7. Albion Farewell (Homage to Delius, for Gavin Bryars)

8. Poesm: Distant Lights of Olancha Recede

9. Down the Slopes to the Meadow (For Ruben Garcia)

10. She Dances by the Light of the Silvery Moon

11. Blind Bird

12. Saint's Name Spoken

13. Place of Dead Roads

14. Child in a Sylvan Field

15. Poem: Boy About 10

16. Poem: Wings

17. Poem: No Name

18. Poem: Advent

By the Dawn's Early Light,Harold Budd,Warner Bros / Wea,Ambient,Neo-Classical,Pop,Popular Music,Rock

Tracks:

Poem: Aztec Hotel
Boy About 10
Arcadia
Dead Horse Alive With Flies
Photo Of Santiago Mc Kinn
Corpse At The Shooting Gallery
Albion Farewell (Homage To Delius)
Distant Lights Of Olancha Recede
Down The Slopes To The Meadow
She Dances By The Light Of The Silvery Moon
Blind Bird
Saint's Name Spoken
Place Of Dead Roads
A Child In A Sylvan Field
Boy About 10
Wings
No Name
Advent

Amazon.com

Always an outlier, Harold Budd enjoys confounding conventional wisdom about ambient music, new age, what have you. Hence his decision in the early '90s to record an album, for Brian Eno's Opal label, devoted to the American landscape--an album of often vaporous melodies intent on figuring the land's geography and history. Budd's a self-admitted devotee of soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone, and his titles alone help conjure the mythical west ("Distant Lights of Olancha Recede," "Place of Dead Roads"), as well as its odd, modern developments ("Aztec Hotel"). Occasional spoken material, a kind of existential cowboy poetry read by Budd, benefits from guitarist Bill Nelson and pedal-steel player B. J. Cole, not to mention viola, harp, and the composer's own array of keyboards. --Marc Weidenbaum

Customer Reviews:

Perhaps Budd's best effort?.......2006-07-06

I know, I know, hard to make that statement, given Budd's remarkable work over the years; especially with Brian Eno. Still, if I had to pick out a single Budd album to give to a non-Budd listener, as an example of Budd in top form, I'd go with this one.

Budd's signature piano blends beautifully with Bill Nelson's guitars, B.J. Cole's slider, Mabel Wong's viola, and Susan Allen's harp. Intentionally evocative of the dusty Southwest which Budd called home as a boy, the album also features a series of Budd's quirky spoken word poems, which begin and end the album in appropriate fashion.

The highpoint, in my opinion, is 'Saint's Name Spoken', featuring Budd on piano and vocals and Bill Nelson on string guitar. Slow, melancholy, evocative, it's right there with some of the best blue Jazz and, yet, is not jazz at all, but something else entirely.

Like most of Budd's work, it's not easy to describe this album, suffice to say that it is among my top ten ambient/instrumental albums of all time. I can't say enough good about it.

I often play this back-to-back with Budd & Eno's ambient classic, "The Pearl".

Not Your Father's Boring Piano Solos.......2005-01-11

I orginally bought the CD for track 13 b/c I kept hearing it on somafm.com but upon listening to the entire CD, it was well worth the money. Budd has a way with the keys and the depth of the heartfelt emotion is reflected in the beauty of the music.

Rich in texture.......2000-09-06

When I first bought this CD some seven years ago, I was immediately put off by the viola that somehow dominates many of the tracks. I put the CD on the shelf and never listened to it until recently. What I found now was a richly textured Ambient/Minimal CD, packed with very emotional pieces. It sounds alot like Harold Budd, but since he gets som extra help from other musicians, this turns out to be something more. I can see parallells between this and for instance Gavin Bryars "After the Requiem" as well as the instrumental extension of David Sylvian's "Gone to Earth", where Bill Nelson's guitar playing is featured as well.

Sleep will come.......2000-04-16

Abandoning the dark, synth-driven soundscapes of "The white arcades", this release delves into contemporary chamber music. However, I think "By the dawn's.." comes dangerously close to shallow new age music. Budd wastes his talent with sketchy, half-way developed compositions, thin synth sounds, and wailing viola. This album features very little of his piano playing, instead there's a couple of mediocre 'spoken word performances' by Budd himself. Besides, this loose collection of tracks and traces clearly lacks the concept character and underlying suspense of his best albums like "The pearl". Actually, the only redeeming quality are some guitar parts by Bill Nelson and B.J.Cole, lending a nice country-rock feeling to some tracks ("Down the slopes..", "The place of..", "A child in.."). After all, the result is a sweet but unengaging sounding album that fails to have anything really intriguing and memorable about it. Fortunately, Budd would return to top-form with 1996's "Luxa".

Little bits of darkness.......2000-01-28

Harold Budd's body of work since the mid-70s has been concerned with a lush, beautiful area of sound. It's worth noting that Budd's work was one of the first things released by Brian Eno on his influential and aptly-named Obscure label. And while this album is a lush, dark, and beautifully atmospheric effort, I find that the occasional poetry...as also occurs on his collaboration with Andy Partridge of XTC...detracts from the atmosphere that the pieces themselves build up. It would've been more effective, I think, if the music had been left to just flow and the verbal bits had been left for perhaps another release where they could've been merged with the music in a more effective manner. But by no means does this mean you shouldn't buy this work; there's a lot here that's more than worthwhile.

Average customer rating:

Profound and Lyrical: A Composer's Commitment

By the Dawn's Early Light
Harold Budd
Manufacturer: All Saints
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Ambient | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

General | New Age | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

The Serpent (In Quicksilver)/Abandoned Cities
The White Arcades
Luxa
Music for 3 Pianos
The Room

ASIN: B000CQJZ4O
Release Date: 2006-02-21

Tracks:

Poem: Aztec Hotel
Boy About 10
Arcadia
Dead Horse Alive With Flies
The Photo of Santiago McKinn
The Corpse at the Shooting Gallery
Albion Farewell (homage to Delius, for Gavin Bryars)
Poem: Distant Lights of Olancha Recede
Down the Slopes to the Meadow
She Dances by the Light of the Silvery Moon
Blind Bird
Saints Name Spoken
The Place of Dead Roads
A Child in a Sylvan Field
Boy About 10
Wings
No Name
Advent

Album Description

By The Dawn's Early Light was originally released in 1991 and marked renowned experimental-ambient composer Harold Budd's return to ensemble writing. There is an irony inherent to the title, the National Anthem overtones contrasted with the genocide of the Native American populations, a significant inspirational well from which this work was drawn. Budd, who grew up in the Mojave, knows how to generate an effectively sparse, time-before-time ambience. This resonates powerfully through mournful viola, vertigo-inducing harp lines and guitarist Bill Nelson's drifting, lonely soundscapes. Available for the first time in more than five years and featuring new artwork.

Customer Reviews:

Profound and Lyrical: A Composer's Commitment.......2007-04-29

This disc represents a high-water mark in the soon-to-ebb tide of Harold Budd's inspiring career (he announced his retirement last year). Deeply affecting and emotionally brilliant, the ensemble playing evokes memories of longing, caring and compassionate non-attachment to things unattainable. Several tracks feature the composer reading his own poems over intermittent accompaniment and, unlike some of my relatives who find them odd or incongruous, I find the content and tone of the artist's voice and poems a resonant sign of his commitment to the overall composition and the "subjects" of his work: the desert, the Native Americans, childhood and the unsurpassable feeling of intuition that links all living and non-living things.

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