As I finally sit own to write this review, it's almost four months in 2002, the dawn of which this collection of music came into my life. After spending months saving up the ash to buy this box set (you think I'm making any real money off of this? Guess again!) and before that doing some research on Bill Dixon only then finding out that this limited, mail-order only item even existed, my need to own Odyssey became a red herring to the actual music (something a lot of record collectors can understand).

I wasn't sure how I exactly wanted to approach this review, as there are so many levels on which to discuss and enjoy the music not to mention the fact that it does completely span six discs. I'm leaving the background discussion of Bill Dixon and his approach to a later article, as I was fortunate enough to get an interview with him a month back. So, forgive me if this verges too far into Lester Bangs and not far enough into Robert Hughes.

Bill Dixon is like a National Treasure to me much like the Badlands, Death Valley or Robert Rauschenberg. Only difference is he's not being recognized for his artistry and integrity in the face of adversity. Suffice it to say that I've been a fan for some years now although I did come pretty late to his music. I was listening to most of his music decades after they had been made available. So, my interest has always been organic for the most part.

So, this six-disc collection of solo performances and spoken word dating back to the beginning of the '70s is like a given for me. I love Dixon's arrangements for small bands as well as orchestra. But his often-understated performing style is served well in these solo recordings. On this collection you are given a museum's worth of art, your own "permanent collection" to ponder and thoroughly explore. That's exactly what I've been doing.

I've really been living with this music for the past few months. I listen to it at home. I listen to it while I write (like right now). I listen to it on the bus to and from work. It's the soundtrack to my life at the moment. While I'm not suggesting that you have to do that to penetrate this audio tome, the pay off is well worth the journey.

Odyssey as soundtrack to your life: detournement was a tactic used by the Situationists in the Œ50s and Œ60s where by taking an established piece of (usually) commercial art, altering the slogans or dialog changes the intentions of the art and therefore turns the propaganda in on itself. Its effectiveness is reason why it's still a popular technique used widely today.

If you are, like me, of the disposition that most of society with it's personal racial profiling, psychic fascism and other alienating means if ultimately just a big piece of commercial art, then you may be looking for ways to detourne your own life. As Odyssey has become the soundtrack to my life, it has in effect altered the meanings of my surroundings.

Talk about fighting alienation with alienated means; this music is like a voice talking to you reminding you that there are other paths not plainly seen. The aural cues and runes are mirrors with which to define in your life what is creative and what is destructive. As a soundtrack, Odyssey is kinetic deconstruction.

The incredible ones and sounds (some would call "skronk" but I'm trying to avoid that word these days) Dixon gets on these recordings are unlike anything you could hear in your noisy city-soundscape. You can't help but be intrigued by the other-worldness of the sounds and the vibrant textures painting a variety of emotional elements while filling completely taking advantage of your aural palette in it's solitude. His own rich tones are often wetted with effects that enhance the elements unique to this style of playing as well as its other-worldness.

Odyssey is the anti-Muzak: in audio versus visual experiments, it's clear that people pick up on audio cues more deeply than visual cues. That is why with streaming video, for example, if you don't have DSL or Cable, the picture comes through in bits and pieces. The capability only exists to send either the visual or audio signal clearly but usually not both. The Internet chose to send the audio signal clearly and it surely wasn't done on a whim.

If Baudelaire was right in calling work the salt that mummifies the soul, then it was only because he died before an entire spectacle existed to embalm us metaphysically. Muzak stuns reality in a miasma of simple lines and points. It's the equivalent of giving a math scholar a million basic addition problems to solve. The long-term effects are more serious then you would think.

Listening to Odyssey is the counterpoint to that. The reflective and occasionally angular arrangement of many of these pieces is pretty consistently challenging. In some ways, it can be a good yardstick in delineating art versus entertainment. Rather than be a lazy spectator, the pieces encourage participation on an intellectual level. Even the titles are evocative. Pictures and scenes are framed in your mind as provoked by the music. In this way, it becomes an intensely personal experience.

Now, this is just one angle that I'm coming from. I've spent a lot of time with this music as I was quickly drawn into it. To write a thorough review of this box set would take pages and probably a lot more music knowledge than I've got.

For me, this is great American art and just as much part of the art tradition as the Beats, the Abstract Expressionists, post-modernism, etc. Where Odyssey falls in order of importance within the creator's repertoire is certainly subjective. But it's very possible for me to think that this could be his Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even. (Bill Dixon, Inc, Archive-Edition)