Album Notes

Love & Time is the third part of a sprawling dance opera by Kentucky composer and visual artist Daniel Dutton. (check the website at dandutton.com) The studio recording was created to guide the live performance by nine musicians. The music veers wildly from folk to funk; the strange fusions of style and genre deliberate attempts to evoke the otherworldly and outlandish quality of elfin music...for this is an opera about a journey to Elfland. Fans of traditional ballads will recognize it as an expanded version of Thomas the Rhymer, with a bunch of elvish lore thrown in for good measure. Love & Time was filmed and broadcast on public television (KET) in 2000.

The instrumentation is also unusual. In addition to guitar, bass, and drums, there's an Arabic violinist, a variety of sampled bird songs, hurdy gurdy, biwa, harpsichord, woodwinds, mandolin, African drums and a glass harmonica. Guest vocalist Aubrey Atwater is a well known New England folk singer.

Don't let the word opera fool you. This is music that tells a story and evokes a strange and wonderful otherworld mood. The music is contemporary dance music and wouldn't sound out of place in a very hip club. Genres were made to be crossbred...that's what we say in Kentucky.