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Spirit
Into Sound - Mickey Hart
Mickey Hart is a rhythm proselytizer. He's been sounding-off from the percussion pulpit since writing his first book, Drumming at the Edge of Magic in 1990. Hart's Planet Drum--the book and the album--set forth an army of percussion acolytes. With Spirit into Sound, Hart has another accompanying book and a gentler music that looks toward the melodic side of percussion. Although there are a few guests, including tabla player Zakir Hussain, Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir, and sarangi master Ustad Sultan Khan, it's Mickey Hart and vocalist/percussionist Rebeca Mauleon who dominate the album. They play melodic percussion instruments and/or electronic samples of African balafon, Brazilian berimbau, and steel drums. For a drummer as worldly as Hart, Spirit into Sound is surprisingly naïve in its childlike rhythms. Mauleon's wordless chants make Spirit into Sound sound like a global glossolalia nursery rhyme. This isn't an album for the rhythmatists of Hart's core following, but a more intimate affair. --John Diliberto |
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Supralingua
- Mickey Hart
Supralingua, "beyond language," is the second Planet Drum album produced by Mickey Hart. More Latin than African, Hart combines compelling production techniques with power players of the drumming world including: Zakir Hussain, master of the North Indian tabla; Giovanni Hidalgo; conguero great from Puerto Rico, Sikiru Adepoju, a disciple of Babatunde Olatunji (a member of the first incarnation of Planet Drum) on dundun; bassist Bakithl Kumalo; and David Garibaldi, traps player. Promising to surpass words, ironically the first track, "Angola," features chanting by The Gyüto Monks Tantric Choir. Supralingua grooves but it lacks the excitement of the self-titled Planet Drum and the "steppin' out" of each virtuoso. --Cristina Del Sesto |
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Sounds
of Light: The Pure Tones of Crystal Singing Bowls Sounds of Light is the second CD of CRYSTAL VOICES, one of our customer's favorites. Both CD's feature digitally recorded healing tones of quartz crystal bowls. On Crystal Voices we were treated to a variety of healing experiences, including a guided healing journey through the body's energy centers. On Sounds of Light we experience the healing power of the bowl tones combined with crystal chimes, Tibetan cymbals and tuning forks. Both CD's are destined to become classic sound healing tools. If you've never experienced the power of quartz crystal bowls, this is an excellent way to give yourself that gift! (New Renaissance Review, Summer 1998) Sounds of Light is the second recording from CRYSTAL VOICES which offers three extended tracks, all recommended most effective when listened to with headphones. Octaves of Light weaves musical octaves associated with the crown, heart and sacral charkas - evoking the qualities of wisdom, love and creation. On Soundings of the Planets, our intent in offering this harmony of fifths is to provide the listener with a tool for releasing tension and stress, realigning an balancing their energy system, accessing doorways of consciousness, and the activation of one's creative potential. The vision we received as we were recording Soundings of the Planets was that of the planets in orbit, each one emitting specific harmonic frequencies and bathing the earth in healing waves of color and sound. While recording their final cut, Angelic Rays, we were showered in rainbow rays of radiant light....blessings from the angels to all. These are higher-frequency, inner attunement SOUNDSCAPES for exploring your inner castle. Branches of Light, Banyen Books & Sound, Spring 1998 |
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The
Mask and Mirror - Loreena McKennitt
McKennitt's travels through Spain and Morocco flavor this album with a distinctly Mediterranean tinge, from the opening "The Mystic's Dream," with its dancing percussion arrangements, to "Marrakesh Night Market," to "Full Circle" and the instrumental "Santiago." "Marrakesh Night Market" is an especially strong performance, with an interesting musical texture; the balalaika, udu drum, and dumbek are played alongside a synthesizer. As usual, McKennitt has set a poem to music, this time Yeats's "The Two Trees," with a lovely introduction on the Uillean pipes. There's also "The Bonny Swans," a traditional lyric, and the CD closes with Shakespeare, as McKennitt sets some of Prospero's words from The Tempest to her own music. Excerpts from McKennitt's journals, included in the CD booklet, make for interesting reading as they shed some light on her source material and inspiration for writing each song. --Genevieve Williams |
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The
Book of Secrets - Loreena McKennitt
McKennitt's recordings always have the quality of a spiritual sojourn; her songs are those of a seeker, whether she's setting Yeats, Scripture, or her own words to her compositions. It's this that attracts people to her music, and The Book of Secrets is no exception, whether it's the lazy rhythms of "Marco Polo," the sober joy of "The Mummers' Dance," the poignancy of "Skellig" or "Dante's Prayer," or the drama of Alfred Noyes's "The Highwayman." "The Highwayman" is a particularly strong effort, especially in comparison to her earlier setting of "The Lady of Shalott"; McKennitt has become much more skilled at musical narrative. This is music that can be enjoyed on many levels, from McKennitt's growing skill as a composer to the deeper questions posed by her lyrics. --Genevieve Williams |
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