Portland Cello Project
Getting me back to basics without all that violence
“Getting back to basics.” It’s the ultimate sloganeered cliché to justify the need for a camping trip.
I’ve been hearing that one more and more over the past year or so from friends, family, acquaintances, all apparently in need to reconnect with nature, to escape the urban pace, if only for a weekend. And we’re talking a real deal camping trip, not a cushy RV, facilities-strewn, bring-your-generator-to-plug-your-Xbox camping trip. I’m talking about tents and firewood and hiking.
As for me, that “back to basics” credo is insufficient to get me to camp, for I am an arsiphobiac: I have an irrational fear of camping.
You can chalk that one up to a lifetime of slasher flicks and zombie movies, because nighttime in a dense wooded area with no immediate lifeline to civilization is unthinkably (and irrationally, granted) horrifying to me. If I were to spend a few nights outside in a tent, it wouldn’t be nature I’d be getting back in touch with, but rather with my anxieties.
So when I seek to fulfill that “back to basics” need in my life, I’m thankful to come across music like that performed by the Portland Cello Project. This remarkable ensemble of classically trained musicians have arranged for our listening enjoyment the hauntingly stunning Musée Mécanique: Under Glass, a tempered, sincere song of extraordinary orchestration. It is strewn together by the gentle plucking of acoustic guitar and the quivering uncertainty of vibraphone timbre, further emboldened by the rich, mournful hum of cellos which endow the song with such depth, one could easily lose oneself in it. With soft, spot-on vocals murmuring delicate lyrics, the Project give us a song so auspiciously real it creates its own presence.
And at least I know, while listening to their music, I won’t be machete’d by some maniac waiting behind a tree.
MP3: Portland Cello Project - Musée Mécanique: Under Glass
www.portlandcelloproject.com
myspace.com/celloproject
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