Spirit Dance

Spirit Dance

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, <I>The Waiting</I>, 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. <I>Spirit Dance</I>, which later spawned a stage production and live recording (<I>Spirit</I>), 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 <I>Pocahontas</I> 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. <I>--Terry Wood</I>