Chroma Key: Graveyard Mountain Home

If you listen to Graveyard Mountain Home as a stand-alone piece of music, without viewing the built-in CD-ROM or accompanying DVD Special Edition version of Chroma Key's third album, you probably won't be overly impressed. If, however, you hear this sophisticated mix of dark, ambient post-rock and psychedelic sounds while viewing the 1955 public-domain film Age 13, you may consider multi-instrumentalist Kevin Moore a small-time genius.

It's hard to believe that this man once played keyboards for Dream Theater, appearing on When Day and Dream Unite (1989), Images and Words (1992) and Awake (1994). Almost as esoteric as his solo album, 2004's Ghost Book (a soundtrack written for the Turkish "horror comedy" film Okul), and far removed from where Moore was going on the last Chroma Key album (2000's Alan Parsons-ish You Go Now), Graveyard Mountain Home is based on Age 13, a film Moore found in the Prelinger Archive that tells the tale of a boy struggling with life in the wake of his mother's death. Moore reduced the film to half the speed and recorded an alternate audio track over the film's original soundtrack – although creepy snippets of muffled dialogue can still be heard in the background of these electronic-based sounds. There is no direct connection between the songs and the action in the film, but Moore expresses the mood of each scene brilliantly.

He opens Graveyard Mountain Home with a rather upbeat piece that combines xylophone with drum rhythms before segueing into more subtle arrangements of loops, mournful pianos, discomforting laughter, spooky spoken words, Moore's own weary vocals and the sounds of rain and thunder. The album concludes with "Again Today," the most traditional song Moore has recorded under either his own name or the Chroma Key moniker since 2000.

Originally created as a "social guidance" film for schools and police departments and based on an actual case history, Age 13 is not necessarily an enjoyable film to watch, especially with its fuzzy degradation and choppy editing. But viewing it with the Chroma Key soundtrack makes an odd experience even odder yet wholly compelling, with a mysterious filmstrip allure that freezes a bygone era. Moore should take this concept and run with it, creating a whole series of albums based on obscure films. He might just alter the face of the genre.

Track Listing:
1) YYY
2) Give Up
3) White Robe
4) Mother's Radio
5) Graveyard Mountain Home
6) Salvation
7) Before You Started
8) Human Love
9) Come In, Over
10) Pure Laughter
11) Andrew Was Drowning His Stepfather
12) Sad Sad Movie
13) True and Lost
14) Again Today
Total Time: 53:25

Added: January 7th 2005
Reviewer: Michael Popke
Score:
Related Link: Official Chroma Key Web Site
Hits: 6937
Language: english

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