Nice review!!

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/07/20/185525.php

Renowned guitarist, producer, and composer Michael Brook has become a
more visible figure during 2006 than he has been in years past. Most
recently, he composed the soundtrack for Al Gore's acclaimed
documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, which released back in May. And
now we are treated to RockPaperScissors, which is his first solo
album in over a decade.

Brook has not been idle in the years since his previous solo album
and instrumental epic Cobalt Blue in 1992. But his work as producer
and songwriter, as well as guitarist and collaborator, has put him in
a less public light. He first came to prominence with the album
Hybrid, a collaboration in 1985 with himself, Daniel Lanois, and
Brian Eno. Brook reportedly learned a great deal from both Lanois,
whom he began assisting in the producer's studio, and Eno, in regard
to an overall approach to songwriting and production sound, which he
carried with him on to his later work.

Musically, Cobalt Blue expanded on the music of Hybrid, and showcased
the style of guitar work that had arisen from Brook and his
compatriot musician friends, The Edge and Lanois. It was a shimmering
reverb that found as much punch from controlled use of echo effects
as in the strumming of strings. He followed up the album the next
year with the ancillary release Live At The Aquarium. Although his
fellow musicians took the sound on to more popular waters, Brook's
stamp as a sound designer was unmistakable, especially as both Edge
and Lanois used Brook's musical invention, the "Infinity Guitar" to
help fashion much of their own sound and style.

RockPaperScissors takes a different turn and showcases how Brook has
been using his talents during these past few years. It finds its
direction as a soundtrack through various landscapes of texture,
light, and shadow. Brook's role becomes less a part of a performance
showcase (although he still handless a good portion of the musical
responsibilities) and more that of a composer and architect of sound.
In fact, at its core, it works best as a passport through the
different styles and mediums Brook conjures for his various other
musical forms.

The album opens with "Strange Procession," which begins with an
aleatoric choral prelude from the Bulgarian Classical Choir before
finally kicking into a more orchestral-driven guitar track. This, and
later "Doges," are the two selections that tie most closely to
Brook's previous solo outings, and feature him as more of the
instrumental lead. Richard Evans collaborates with Brook as string
and choral arranger for much of the album, forces that help to bring
a more lush feeling to Brook's palette.

As a whole, RockPaperScissors is very classically oriented. Every
track features either strings or choir, or both. And not just string
arrangements tacked on to existing songs, but music that is built
from the ground up to be a symphonic journey. It's not disimilar in
scope to Craig Armstrong, for a reference point. In the same way,
Brook himself is bringing his considerable soundtrack and writing
work over to his own releases, and incorporating everything together
into a larger musical vision. It's not one or the other (although
taken as a whole, Brook's guitar work does seem to take a back seat)
but builds on top of both. Between this and Brook's previous
collaborations on world music, which all seem to come together and
bolster the short and sweet "Tangerine," not only is everything fair
game, but everything is essential.

But collaborations are what form the bulk of the record. "Want"
features the vocals of Lisa Germano, and captures early on a slower
and more restrained tenderness. Similar in tone, "Pond" is a
collaboration with the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, where a world edge
meets with glacial strings and light percussion to produce one of the
more moving tracks on the record. On the complete other side of the
specturum, with "Dark Room," Brook creates a musical backdrop for Sir
Richard Burton's reading of the Dylan Thomas poem, "Under Milk Wood."
It's an interesting mix, but one that drastically sticks out from the
rest of the album.

The title track, "RockPaperScissors," is a writing parnership between
Brook and singer-songwriter Shira Myrow, as well as a performance
collaboration with UK singer Paul Buchanan. It works reasonably well,
but lyrically is a little convoluted, and has more of a standard
pop/rock song setup to it than the rest of the record. Overall, "Dark
Room" and "RockPaperScissors" jar the flow of the album considerably,
and although fine on their own, are too isolated as musical thoughts
to complement the rest of the album.

Closing out the record is the two-part composition, "Pasadena." It
begins with a slow and sparse vocal from Ben Christophers, and then
over the course of fourteen minutes, a slow epic of loss from the
Bulgarian Studio Orchestra gradually recedes and fades into nothing.

RockPaperScissors is a very creative and enjoyable album that
stretches how we generally view two of the more dominant forms of
western music: classical and rock. By balancing all these varying,
and often disparate, strains of musical thought, Michael Brook has
succeeded in crafting a sumptuous feast of a record. Although
containing instances of jarring inconsistency (as mentioned with
tracks four and five), the broader scope of the music wins out. As a
soundtrack with no particular movie in mind, consider the soundtrack
your own.

Fred

ps. anyone been to the cd release party at Joe's Pub NY last tuesday?