Fourteen Parts by Code One
Reviewer: Jane Ellen

Fourteen Parts is a vast, timeless landscape of sound and imagery, featuring the vocal improvisations of Cindy Lubar Bishop and the electronic music of Peter Girard. The album is impossible to categorize, with seemingly equal parts of avant-garde, jazz, beat poetry, new age, and funk. Those fortunate enough to become acquainted with this CD will find themselves drawn into an alternate universe of ever-shifting color and nuance, as fourteen stories in sound unfold.

The album tells a tale which is without shape or form, yet mesmerizing all the same. For millennia the voice has been used as a vehicle to deliver texts, to arouse emotions through the combined use of poetry and music. In this instance, Cindy Lubar Bishop alternates between discernible text and a language of her own invention: one in which her voice becomes a pure, unfettered instrument, unrestricted by the usual expectations of the sung word.

The teaming of these two musicians is nothing short of brilliant as Peter Girard takes his cue from Lubar Bishop's vocal improvisations and weaves a tapestry of sound, which appears to bend the envelope of time and space. Fully cognizant that when reducing the voice to its purest form one enters exciting (and sometimes dangerous) musical territory, Girard uses his compositional genius to surround the voice, enhance it, and make it truly a part of his electronic soundtrack.

I defy the listener to choose a favorite track, for with repeated playing each piece will become a lasting favorite in its own right. This is not a CD to which one merely listens, this is a CD to be experienced, and as such, should be deemed a treasure.

Update: The Electronic Music Foundation will be making some of Cindy's music available to the general public. You may read more about her here.