By 1981, when Dolmen Music was released, Meredith Monk was already a seasoned composer, using voice as her main musical vehicle. Beyond categories like instrumental music, art songs, or opera, Monk's music pivots on extraordinary contrasts--leaps from mellifluous flow to staccato, and extreme register utterances. The shorter pieces on Dolmen Music have distinct art song-- or even pop--traces in their rolling piano figures and attention to melody. But the title suite is a generous reigning in of Robert Een's deliberate cello, Julius Eastman's colorful percussion, and an array of vocal tones that couple low, long bellows with short bursts of high, almost electronic-sounding palpitations. Monk has made vocal music without compare in this piece. -- Andrew Bartlett
Review by Michael Breece
Meredith Monk has such a wonderful and unique vocal style that she is able to sing in complete abstraction (no known words or language for much of the album) yet maintain a very emotional and even sentimental quality in these abstractions, at times. Listeners who can get past just how unique and abstract her approach is will find immense joy and sadness deep within her pieces. On Dolmen Music, Monk wavers from being sad to the point of being quite morose (such as the tracks "Gotham Lullaby" and "The Tale") to being happy to the point of hysteria (as on "Traveling" and "Biography") without skipping a beat. Most of the musical accompaniment is minimalist (mainly piano with occasional, sparse percussion, guest vocalists also being prominent on the final six-part track "Dolmen Music"). This minimalist support only furthers Monk's vast vocal language as the prominent focus in the recordings. Listeners will also be very pleased to find that her wonderful voice is not crowded or overshadowed. A true original, Monk's work should be sought by anyone with an interest in vocal exploration.
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