OWLS IN OBSIDIAN
by Todd Tamanend Clark

I did not know when I started this blog that I would be reviewing music, but this one just HAD be presented. I took a bit of a journey last week. Had about an hour and half in the car from Pittsburgh to Lake Erie. Before I left I looked around for something I could stick into the CD player on the way up. Todd Clark gave me a copy of his OWLS CD many moons ago. I had heard bits and pieces of it, but never the whole thing. What the heck. I grabbed it and off I went.

[NOTE: For the record and in the opinion of many who know him, Todd Clark was Trent Reznor before Trent Reznor was Trent Reznor. Trent grew up 15 miles northwest of where I am writing this. Todd Clark lived not too far south of here. From what I understand, Todd sold Trent his first keyboard. If you listen to Todd's early stuff, you can see that there might not have been a Nine Inch Nails without him. Trent HAD to have been taking it all in. But that's just a FWIW from based on what I know. A lot of great ideas are born of one, but developed and capitalized on by another. Check out Todd's early stuff and tell me what you think (that is if you can get your hands on them. The records are rare and quite valuable.)]

I had no idea what I was in for and THAT is what made this experience so magical. OWLS IN OBSIDIAN, according to Todd's webpage at CDBaby.com, is "dark electronic avant-garde instrumental industrial jazz based on Native American owl legends." He further explains that this disc is a "thirteen song cycle based on various autochthonal spiritual concepts from the North American continent. These compositions combine to form a sixty-six minute dark symphony for futuristic electronic orchestra."

But what you really have here in these 66 minutes, is not a symphony, so much as it is an experience, an adventure, or a transportation, if you will. I was pleasantly surprised...and delighted by this...along with half of the bird kingdom that saluted me as I drove by. I've tried to pinpoint what I heard. Maybe Pink Floyd meets the ThunderGods. Or maybe the Smithsonian on acid. It can't really be done. In fact what I really want to say about this album lies more within the realm of 'impression' than review.

OWLS IN OBSIDIAN is an exhibition of the grandest kind. Not a painting in sight. Yet the disc contains a whole gallery of holographic images complete with color, light, textures, and even a hint of wood smoke. "If you could see what I hear." Deep reds and blue-blacks, the moon, the cool dampness of midnight air, night sounds and the crackling of evening fires in another century, myths and sorcerers, flutes and drums…intense and haunting. And, of course, owls. It is all there. Each movement, each turn in the road bringing the listener face to face with the forgotten and the unexpected, but oh so well-placed. Call it an initiation. Listen with your heart and you will remember.

I don’t know how else to explain. To do so might make it all disappear. There are no words. This is not only electronic/techno/world at it’s best. It is far beyond all of that. This is art, this is beauty, this is a portal to places that live...and live vibrantly, and Todd has laid it all out for us to see. Like any true masterpiece, one does not see the paint or the canvas. All one sees is the image, or in this case, all one senses is the wonder of walking into another time, another dimension, with Brother Owl moving ever so silently through the branches overhead.

OWLS IN OBSIDIAN is a celebration of Wisdom and Knowing. I have never ‘seen’ music the way I did that afternoon. Nor shared it as I did, escorted by Winged Ones showing respect and gratitude for this honoring of their fellow bird, Owl. By Hawks perched and nodded their heads as I drove by. By Eagles at play overhead. By Ravens in fly-by formation. They knew. And I knew that they knew. We all could feel it and it was truly exhilarating.

YOU are worth every moment you will spend to DO this album. Or should I say, to have this album DONE to you.I recommend you take the journey…