The Great Animal Orchestra

July 1, 1996
In December 1980, a rock band whose members are all psychics, records an album amidst the ancient ruins of an abbey in Wales. The result is tragic; but 14 tormented years later, the band members are lured to a reunion by inescapable forces. Together, they try to stem the evil emanating from the abbey. Though long, this novel rarely drags. But neither does it terrify. A surfeit of plot may be the explanation; it's hard to work up a good scare when moving so quickly and shifting focus so often. The idea of an all-psychic band--a real stretch--suffers here from overkill: the talents of these four men and women include precognition, teleportation and much more. And the novel's whirlwind ending, however entertaining, does not sufficiently resolve all of the preceding conflicts. December remains a good editing's distance away from the caliber of Rickman's (Curfew) best. Less would have been more.

January 23, 2012
This memoir of sonic investigation highlights the lessons learned from 40 years of listening to the world’s biophonies—the sounds of living organisms. Musician and naturalist Krause (Wild Soundscapes: Discovering the Voice of the Natural World) uses the language of music to understand everything from birdsong, to ocean waves, to decimated habitats, relying perhaps too heavily on the experiences of Native peoples to answer his questions about the origins of music, especially how the sonic structure inherent in biophany impacted human expression to take the form of music. While Krause notes competing theories on music’s evolution and makes a clear case for nature’s ongoing influence on contemporary composition, the origins of music are never found. Instead, Krause’s musical expertise allows him to hear the orchestral layering of different species in each biophony, an insight that explains group vocalization as an evolutionary survival mechanism rather than a purposeful chorus of noise. As Krause discovered early in his career, his body of work unintentionally revealed “the state of biomes that have rendered ecologically transformed through human intervention.” Photos.