Not gonna lie – while being in the business of reviewing music for years offers continuous roads to discovering amazing, even revolutionary artists, there is no end to my frustration when an incredible artist I should have known years ago somehow escapes my radar.
With my recent immersion into the breathtaking Myth of Thalendria, the latest epic album by visionary composer and renowned Fantasy Music Wizard Christopher Caouette, I feel like I’m making up for a quarter century of lost time. Since I’m a great fan of so many of David Arkenstone’s fantastical musical adventures, I should also have been aware of Caouette’s extensive discography, which reaches back to Ring of Dragons (released in 2001, around the time Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings film trilogy started) and extends through Tale of the Oakenwish (2002).
Caouette weaves his fascinating narratives image-less soundtracks of the mind (leaving the visuals to our agile imaginations) with clever titles, vibrant melodic and harmonic grandeur, global rhythmic intensity and a hybrid musical style that fuses Celtic, World, Electronic and soundtrack/orchestral elements. Listening straight through from the first track, a mystical, soul-engaging invitation to explore the “Myth of Thalendria” featuring a lush orchestra and Ieva Pranskute’s hypnotic violin melody, through the soaring, triumphant dreamscape “Awakening Thalendria,” I feel like I should just abandon my post in mundane, day to day reality and spend a few weeks drifting off into a soundscape full of Caouette’s soothing journeys to fantastical realms.
The composer makes no bones about his intentions that we blessed listeners do just that: “I wrote these as an escape from reality as opposed to being synonymous with actual events. The closest it gets is there’s a D&D vibe to it. What ambient music does is let you drift off, and I always want to create an escape where the music is the focus and not a backdrop. People still use ambient music that way and call it relaxing, which it can be – but there are times when you want to do battle and overcome the struggle. That ‘I Shall Overcome’ theme has been part of the last two albums, but other works are more about the fantasy world that was around the listener.
“Power in the music is another aspect I strive for,” Caouette adds. “Think 1492 from Vangelis or many of the works by Two Steps From Hell. Plus there’s some crossover into symphonic metal that has leached in…on purpose. In the end, if I feel like I can embrace the music, I know I’ve completed my goal.”
As with a lot of ambient fantasy music, we could close our eyes, listen to the gorgeous but quite compact ten tracks over 36 minutes and allow ourselves to float free in the joys of Caouette’s ever-enveloping, magnificently caressing musical realm. But since the accompanying literary story is kind of the point here goes: Myth of Thalendria is the tale of a cunning elf rogue named Lyria, who armed with a stolen artifact of ancient power, finds an unexpected ally in Alden, a scholarly human with a mysterious past.
Together, the duo evades relentless pursuers, trekking through treacherous wilderness to the ruins of Thalendria, where Lyria’s true heritage as heiress to a magical empire is revealed. Combining her supernatural abilities with Alden’s vast knowledge, their task is to overcome obstacles to awaken to dormant magic of Thalendria, thus restoring a lost empire and opening up new vistas of unity and discovery.
Forging interesting connections from album to album, Caouette reveals that Myth is a major event inside the book of the Chronicler (Legends from the Chronicler, 2018), the character the first album in this series was based on who roamed the world discovering these ancient legends. Longtime fans may be able to hear hints of earlier melodies on the current album.
The idea for Myth of Thalendria formed out of the first piece he wrote for his new label Wayfarer Music Group, “The Heiress,” which was originally a one-off featuring heavy hitter guest musicians. From there, he began to envision a larger story about a rogue and a scholar, an unlikely pair, he says, “that formed a bond, fell in love but still had a lot of mystery and some loss behind it…but not as much loss as Oakenwish,” a reference to his 2022 collection Tale of the Oakenwish. “The Heiress,” a key musical plot point towards the end of the story/album, is a dramatic piece produced with an incredible 100 separately recorded tracks. It begins solemnly before building in intensity and finally exploding into a fast paced, high energy adventure full of dense percussion, sweeping strings and powerful male choral voices.
Obviously, Caouette intends for us to listen straight through as the story and dramatic tension evolves, starting with the opening title track, which in his words, “sets the scene, and I imagine visions of great elven cities and structures, magic and the like. The ancient past that was lost to time.” For those who enjoy sampling a little before embracing things full-throttle, some cool entry points include the second track, a wild, freewheeling musical invitation to “Come With Me” that begins with the gentle harp plucks of Erika Lieberman and graceful violin strains of Robyn Buttery before exploding into a blast of jamming, dancing Celtic energy.
For this piece, the composer wanted to create a tavern scene that was both chaotic and yet had a grounding melody that would “sweep off the listener on their adventure with the characters. This is where our two characters suddenly meet, become involved in a much bigger plot and thus need to escape.
One of Caouette’s other select pieces – and thus another interesting entry point – is “Unlikely Magic,” a tension filled, soaring orchestral and chorale piece that charms and lifts us halfway through the story on the wings of Buttery’s charming violin melody. As the composer explains it, “The scholar is a bit socially awkward, yet has been a massive help to the elvin rogue. This piece shows them growing closer, and then at one point, she even shows him how to dance. While this is happening, she secretly caused the nature around them to light up and blossom with her, as part of her yet to be revealed magic.”
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