Concept albums have been at the cutting edge of rock music for decades. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released by the Beatles in 1967, was the definitive concept album which set the ground rules of a common musical theme with linked liner art, and tracks that sequed into each other. Many other major bands of that era adopted the concept format, notably the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed (which started as a rock treatment of Dvorak's New World Symphony), S.F. Sorrow from the Pretty Things, and the The Who's rock opera Tommy.

The massive artistic and commercial success of Sgt. Pepper meant that the concept album has remained an important creative format for rock artists, and has become an established way of reaching new audiences and boosting sales. Recently the classical industry has been desperately trying to find ways to fight declining concert attendances, slowing CD sales, and ageing audiences. The strategy of choice to reverse the decline has been to make classical music easier to access, and cheaper CDs (with prices driven down by the rise of Naxos) and internet downloads (see MaxOpus) have been the main weapons of defence. But interestingly the classical concept album has never really featured as a method of winning new audiences.

Until, perhaps, the arrival of Sound in Spirit from the Bay Area choral ensemble Chanticleer. This twelve male voice group, which positions itself as an "Orchestra of Voices", has established an enviable reputation for musicality and innovation since its foundation in 1978. Sound in Spirit is as close to a classical concept album as we are likely to get. Producer Steve Barnett sets out a clear agenda. This is the first Chanticleer album created to be totally recorded and remixed in a studio environment. It was conceived as a conceptual whole with no pauses between tracks. And the album borrows some techniques from outside the classical world, most notably the use of ambient sounds. But the album is certainly not an exercise in dumbing-down, rather it is a work of serious musical scholarship. Several of the tracks use 'overtone singing' either intentionally (Sarah Hopkins' Past Life Memories) or accidentally due to the precise intonation of the ensemble (Joseph Jennings' Sound in Spirit).

Sound in Spirit is a mosaic of mosaic of sacred chant, drawing from traditions as diverse as Native American and Japanese, Byzantine and Tibetan, Gallo-Portuguese and native Australian. The composers range from Tomas Luis de Victoria and Alfonso X de Castille to the contemporary voices of Jan Gilbert, Carlos Rafael Rivera, Jackson Hill and Sarah Hopkins. Particularly interesting is Past Life Memories by Sarah Hopkins which draws on her work with Australian Aboriginal music.

The full story Chanticleer rocks with Sound in Spirit, including excerpts from an interview with Chanticleer's Music Director Joseph Jennings and an audio sample from Sarah Hopkins' Past Life Memories with its overtone singing, is On An Overgrown Path.

Photo credits:
Sgt. Pepper - Amazon.com
Sound in Spirit - Chanticleer