Thai Elephant Orchestra

Soldier & Lair are co-founders of the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang, Thailand, and they present the first example of non-human animals creating their own compositions on musical instruments. Starting with the knowledge that elephants enjoy listening to music, they used marimbas, a Theremin, xylophones, gongs, drums & other instruments, and trained the elephants in performance techniques. The compositions are unedited & exactly as the elephants wrote them. The most interesting & strange sound on the album comes from an elephant blowing a harmonica through its trunk.Can elephants make music? By the sounds heard on Thai Elephant Orchestra, a collaboration between humans Dave Soldier and Richard Lair and the Thai Elephant Conservation Center (not to mention the six creatures doing all the work), the answer is a resounding, percussive, and unimaginable “yes.” Provided with oversized instruments–including a large harmonica, gong, synthesizers, and numerous drums–six elephants between the ages of 6 and 17 were allowed to create whatever racket they wished. The results are astounding and about as avant-garde as music gets. The elephants’ free improvising isn’t melodic, but the rhythmic interplay here is complex and the instrumental solos are all remarkable. On “Big Band,” a somber gamelan-like opening is followed by a spirited harmonica solo, while “Percussion Trio” features a heartbeat-sounding bass drum backed by a crashing thunder sheet. In sum, the elephants perform unaccompanied on 12 tracks; the remainder of the disc features elephants playing alongside humans as well as a handful of tunes about animals performed by North Thailand locals. All of it is entertaining, but the human-led tracks just can’t compete with the inventive elephants and their ragged, slow-paced, and off-kilter music-making. Granted, you probably won’t want to hear Phrathida, JoJo, and Luuk Kob pounding away everyday, but the elephants probably feel the same way about Cecil Taylor. –Jason Verlinde

• Mulatta