A funny thing happened the first time I listened to Ste-Claire Hotel; I couldn’t get the film Baraka out of my mind. The music of Michael Stearns
is such a critical element to the film that any hinting of the
soundtrack sends me into a nostalgic spiral of trance like
contemplation. Ste-Claire Hotel is so reminiscent of the
soundtrack to Baraka, that I had to watch the film again not only to
satiate my thirst for mind blowing imagery and music, but make sure I
was not just listening to the soundtrack by mistake and to continue the
trance that Ste-Claire Hotel puts me in.

The
sound design is rather typical of any ambient release, however the
acoustic meat of the experience is derived from the slow pushing and
pulling of the counter-chord progressions that not only morph the chord
structure with each swell of the atmosphere, but also the tonal
character, but only by the choice of notes rather than the manipulating
of signal source. The overtones produced by the interplay of dissonant
notes are more critical than the signal source itself. The choice of
chord structure is more important than the actual melody (which, of
course, there is very little of, considering the type of music on
display here). Varying tempos as the album progresses also add to the
overall movement and progress of this ambient, sweeping album.

The
one weak point of the album, which is a rather glaring weak point, is
the attempt to include a vocal melody of sorts on “Not Another Elvis”.
A melody of bells starts things off with a slight disruption of the
general mood, but then a very up front, mouth noise-heavy voice berates
the listener with a loose, weak melody that breaks the meditation
induced by the previous tracks and the first third of this track. It
pops up in the middle of a rather nice timbral ambiance and destroys
the power of the track. Voice is used quite effectively two tracks
later, but here it falls very short. Luckily, this fault is not enough
to ruin the album, as it is easy to get back into the trance after the
track ends.

With such a simple formal structure of swelling and receding chordal objects, Ste-Claire Hotel seems like it would be a rather uninteresting and boring release. On the contrary, Le Chat Blanc Orchestra has created an evolving, engrossing, and meditative album. Both Baraka and Ste-Claire Hotel
are excellent pieces of art to have on hand in the event that a serious
mood change is needed, or that the mind needs to be allowed to slow
down and wander into regions not previously explored.