One Ensemble of Daniel Padden

As a member of UK's Volcano the Bear since 1995, Daniel Padden has been involved in the creation of some of the most compelling and challenging music in recent memory. As an album, The One Ensemble of Daniel Padden is pretty difficult to pin down. In much the same way as Richard Youngs and Simon Wickham-Smith, or the early Third Ear Band, Padden uses traditional folk structures as the basis for much of songs here. But other, even more esoteric, influences are at work here as well: Southeast Asian traditional musics, acoustic jazz flourishes, perhaps even the mystical minimalism of Terry Riley. So what does this mean for the listener? A strange and beautiful amalgram of (mostly) wordless vocals, stumbling piano, scurrying cello, mournful kazoo interludes, deranged waltzes, and stuff that's totally unidentifiable combined into Padden's skewed and wayward outside music. (Catsup Plate)