I’m a really think-y guy. I give thought to things that most people simply glaze over, or could just care less to know. For example, what’s up with the cover of David Elias’ The Window? Is he in a coffee shop? Why does he have one eye closed? Does he know something that I don’t? Why didn’t he go for the artsy indie artist cover? You know, a picture of some guy with this head in his hands, with some evil corporate empire in the background?

Well, unlike most of my music musings, there is a little story behind why I’m even bothering to review The Window. I feel that it is important historically, so I'm going to share it. I say that because I've never come across an album on Super Audio CD without major or semi-major label support. I get e-mail concerning my reviews all of the time. Most of it revolves around questions of a technical nature, specifically SACD. While my fellow writers could seriously give a rat's ass about this new music format, many music fans in cyberspace are curious and have a lot of questions. And then there are the indie bands/artists. A few have contacted me. Some want me to review their album, but never offer up a copy, yeah right. Or others want their stuff reviewed and direct me to some secret URL, a dark and dingy alleyway of the Internet to download their entire album on MP3.

Truthfully, I’d rather cut my hands with a razor blade and dip them in a tub full of alcohol than download a crappy sounding MP3 on my dial-up connection. Honestly, there are far too many crap bands, with crap CDs/MP3s than I have time. I never imagined (at this point in time anyway) that somebody with no label, with no mega-dollar support, would contact me about his or her Super Audio CD. You see, getting your album on SACD is like getting your independent record on CD back in say, 1986. In the present, SACD is a toy for the big boys, the big names, and mega labels like Sony Music, Universal, and Abkco. Only recently have small labels started to dabble, but even then, they can't actually churn out the SACDs without outside help.

But a man that calls himself David Elias raised his hand clutching his latest album on SACD. Not only did Mr. Elias catch me off guard, he also blew me away when he told me his album was multi-channel and a hybrid disc to boot. There are only a handful of plants in the entire world that can churn out Hybrid SACDs at the moment. Honestly, I thought the guy was blowing smoke up my ass. I never dreamed that anything could sneak under my super nerd radar, and yet here it is. After Mr. Elias shared his amazing story of just how he pulled off this SACD coup, he offered a copy. I in turn accepted the offer but I wanted two copies, and Elias, being the cool guy that he is sent me two shrink wrapped copies of The Window, and I will be giving one copy away to a lucky epinions writer.

The music pouring through The Window

After taking in about 20 seconds of The Window I realized just how mainstream my tastes have become in the past few years. Like someone walking into a theater after the flick has already started, I allowed my ears time to adjust. Now that I’ve had all this time to get acquainted, there are tracks that speak to me more than others. The Window is difficult to categorize, slapping it in the folk category is easy only because that is the nearest description, but it isn’t always completely fitting.

The first half of The Window is definitely a mix of the upbeat, quiet, and sometimes somber side of little guitar strumming stories. Freedom on the Freeway a straight up and down guitar pluckin’, harmonica playin’ tune kicks things off. Freedom, a little ditty about traveling, and life on the road has Elias showing his rascal side with bits like ‘I’m just the kind of guy that that drives away, I’m only here to disappear. Yet Elias shares his low maintenance side with lines like “I love my Chevron coffee..... suits me fine. The following tracks, like Summer Wind and Go Down Easy are easy to overlook. A little conventional in sound, and in presentation, these folk-y numbers tend to reward anyone with the liner notes in hand. There are great little observations about life in America to be appreciated here, nothing heavy, more reminiscing and bits of Americana than anything else.

The Old King sounding somber and reflective, leans more toward the songs (lyrically) on Jewel’s Spirit that never gained any airplay, but grabbed ahold of some fans really tight (like me) and never let go. The intro to Half An Hour Away has what I personally wanted to hear more of on The Window. With just a hint of something sinister (in sound) around the edges that say, Natalie Merchant would churn out; like St. Judas, Half an Hour Away is where my ears really started to dig in. Following the intro, Half an Hour Away is where Elias plays a bit, a little Alice in Wonderland with musings like ‘I wish I had a field of corn... Or half a rag to keep me warm...... A bag of bones to blow my horn.......... Time to fade away.”

Her name is A. is the only true love song here. And after getting rather close to this tune, Elias has me wondering just who this mystery woman is. Would a full name cause controversy? Or is it more like controversy in his own mind that is being avoided? A defense mechanism perhaps? Maybe I have to stop thinking about every little thing so much and simply accept this sad song that I’ve befriended.

The Window (intro) is a free style of sorts. Various stringed instruments sigh and wince in pain. And later, post intro, a guitar drips with the sounds of a showdown between two men in the old west. It's like a warm up session on drugs that finds the mind clearing up once the intro track fades away. The Window finds Elias showing a little bit of doom and gloom. There seems to be a “what has the world come to” vibe here when Elias sings “I own nothing that’s holy........ Except ideas yet to come.” At times even though the feeling is extremely vague, Loreena McKennitt's The Book of Secrets seems to haunt this brace of tracks, and maybe even the intro to Half an Hour Away to some degree was well.


Surround Mix & Details


I could go on and on here, and no doubt put everyone to sleep with all kinds of statistics. There are however some very important and interesting bits worth knowing. Unlike most professional recordings that are made on analog master tapes, and then transfered to DSD (DSD or Direct Stream Digital is SACD), The Window was recorded and mastered entirely in DSD. Thanks to the generosity of many of Elias' friends, and some key folks at Sony Music, this scarce and expensive gear was made available to everyone involved in the project.

The Sound, oh the sound (audio nerds only)

I've been crying for the longest time about crappy sound. 90% of mainstream CDs sound like every instrument, and every vocal was captured in some sound booth; and then run through Pro Tools a million times, with sterile and cold results. Thankfully that is not the case here. Produced by Elias and KC Groves, with Gus Skinas handling the DSD mixing and mastering, something wonderful (musically) was the result. How did Elias get Gus Skinas, a guy that assisted with the 5.1 mix for Floyd's Dark Side to assist him? My theory is that Elias met up with Skinas someplace and moved his hand through the air like a Jedi and told Skinas that he would assist. Disclaimer I cannot confirm or deny that Elias is in fact a Jedi.

Unlike virtually every album ever recorded, the recording sessions for The Window were totally devoted to multi-channel SACD. At the moment, sadly most albums are recorded with SACD as an after thought and often times, it sounds exactly like that. Three Doors Down Away from the Sun and Alice in Chains Greatest Hits on SACD are two perfect examples of this.

The Window doesn't really dazzle every single moment, rather the music moves from subtle to grand and sweeping. It's the little things that make a difference, like often times, Elias' vocals are pouring from the center channel, uncluttered by other sounds. Other times, like Transcendental Deprivation part III a clean recording of a guitar driven instrumental really showcases the silky smooth sound that SACD can deliver with the proper material.

And then The Window/intro really makes full use of all the channels. Rather than show off by allowing some instrument to blast away at you from the rear or center, the natural reverb (or so it seems) pours from all channels when appropriate. The sense of space, the sound of an instrument floating between speakers rather than simply blaring from a point source makes the sound (at times) eerily real.

It's possible that I'm audibly witnessing the next step in mixing music in surround. I've had this idea in my mind concerning “phantoms" and I was wondering just how long it would take for my theory to actually materialize. Like engineers mixing music in stereo, creating “phantom" vocals in the center for example, so that a singer seems to come from the middle rather than from two separate speakers is old news.

People hear this all the time in stereo music, and are totally oblivious to it. Now it seems that this technique has finally jumped into multi-channel music. It sounds like (to these ears anyway) Skinas used a front, center and rear channel to create a “phantom" source for instruments on The Window/intro. But rather than create a center phantom, it seems to be pulled back, more between the listener and the front sound stage. It's a bit strange, but wonderfully spacious. Either Skinas figured out how to mix music in 3-D taking into account the vast number of “phantoms" that could be created (like between the center, and left rear for example) or these guys set up a bunch of microphones and let everyone jam and I'm burning brain cells contemplating something that never even happened.

It could be a little bit of both, but regardless, the result is one of the most musical, detailed, and spacious recordings I've ever come across. I'm sure David Elias had a personal reason for using The Window as a title. For me however, the title is very fitting when referring to square hole in a wall with a band jamming on the other side. It sounds that good, and if you're a SACD fanatic, The Window deserves a slot in your collection.




© Tony Flores 2003



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