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World
& New Age Music Reviews
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By
Kathryn Sargent
More than music, Imaginarium
and Infinite Pool,
by Tom Kenyon, these discs employ  Kenyon's
discoveries in psychoacoustics to reach your brain in ways beyond
normal music. And more than a musician, Tom Kenyon is one of the
leading researchers on the effects of sound on consciousness.
Imaginarium (Orb Communications) starts off with
a song that actually has lyrics, which startled me. I've been
going to sleep to his Soma CD for years, and since it's all
toning, I wasn't expecting lyrics. It's a lovely song,
though, and Imaginarium is the title song of the
disc. My favorite on this disc is “The Conversion of Dolorosa,”
which is a tonal poem portraying the passage from sadness to joy.
“Body Rub” is another favorite, with all the percussion
produced by Kenyon drumming on his own body. This one reminds
me a little of Bobby McFerrin. Kenyon even tones like a humpback
whale on “Ohana: Dance with Humans and Leviathans.”
Imaginarium is a passionate journey of consciousness that will
ignite your creativity.
Infinite Pool (Orb Communications), by Tom Kenyon,
is subtitled “Passage Into the  Holographic
Brain.” Kenyon's liner notes suggest using the music
while doing inner work, psychological clearing, or exploring altered
states of consciousness. This music can tap into deep levels of
consciousness, and may lead to insights on suppressed material.
It may produce imagery that you can work with, journaling, dialoguing,
as you would with dreamwork. Kenyon, who has a Masters Degree
in Psychological Counseling, believes that the development of
multi-dimensional consciousness is a natural step in evolution.
This music has an incredibly complex, multiple-layering of tones
that should be of great assistance in developing your own brain's
multi-dimensional consciousness.
 Gabrielle
Roth fans, rejoice! This month finds us blessed with the re-release
of four of her albums in one four-disc set called The
Classics (Raven Recording). The set of digitally re-mastered
albums includes Totem, Bones, Initiation, and Ritual.
Roth is a favorite musician for trance dancers with her pulsing
blend of ancient and modern rhythms. Totem became an underground
classic shortly after its release and has remained hugely popular
ever since with its shamanic drumming trance-dance music. Initiation
is said to be a map to take you from inertia to ecstasy. Bones,
one of my favorites, has hymns to animal spirits. And Ritual,
the last album in the set, is an inspirational album for yoga,
massage, and meditation, and emphasizes rhythms of stillness and
flowing. If you love drums and dancing, you will be enraptured
by this set!
 For
a complete change of pace, try Buedi Siebert's Om
Mani Padme Hum (Real Music). Joyful chanting accompanied
by exotic flute, guitar, udu and percussion present a delightful
spiritual, aural cleanse. Om Mani Padme Hum is a powerful
Buddhist mantra (Om Mani Peme Hung in Tibetan) of which it is
said that, for those who fully embrace it, they will have the
goodwill of others, good health, and a life free of obstacles.
Siebert writes that, during the course of recording the album,
the Om Mani was chanted hundreds of times in his studio. He found
that obstacles and concerns melted in the atmosphere created by
the mantra, and a “feeling of lightness and the 'void
of serenity' took over.” This is a dramatic, passionate,
fluid collection that creates its own unique soundworld.
 Picture
yourself right in the midst of thousands of dancing, squirming,
half-naked celebrants in a Mardi Gras parade in Rio, with drums
pounding fast and furious all around you in a half-mad frenzy,
and you'll know what to expect from the title track of
Luis Garay's Percussion
World: Sacumba. It's so HOT! It just SIZZLES!
(Do you have any idea how hard it is to type and dance at the
same time?) Luis Garay leads percussionists Wilbur Wood, Leon
Eynatyan, and Miguel Alfaro on kit drums, whistles, Argentinean
drums, whistles, gongs, bells, ngoma, chimes, congas, djembe,
colanuts, bongo, agogo, timbales, surdo – basically, if you
can hit it and make rhythm, it's here! Sacumba is full of
power and grace. Don't miss this one!
 As
a recording artist, pianist Richard Shulman is nothing
less than prolific! Added to his extensive catalog of recordings
are two new additions, New Beginnings
and Camelot Reawakened: A
Vision Fulfilled. New Beginnings was
recorded with cellist Adriana contino, formerly the principal
soloist for the Stuttgart (Germany) Chamber Orchestra. “Gustav's
Lullaby” is my personal favorite, a tender offering from
Adriana and Richard. Camelot Reawakened: A Vision Fulfilled
is about dreams coming true and was performed by Richard Schulman,
a twenty-voice choir, soloists, and the Asheville (North Carolina)
Symphony Orchestra. This album may seem a bit more of what a New
Age audience might expect (though both albums are lovely), with
movements like “the Dream,” “Releasing the Past/Healing,”
and “For Those Who Have Returned from the Center of the Labyrinth.”
You can hear Richard Shulman at the LifeArts Expo in Atlanta
during the first weekend in April, where he will present a concert.
Spanning an impressive fifteen days, The Savannah Music
Festival brings nearly 100 world class musicians to the
southeast March 21-April 4, 2004. For information, email Info@savannahmusicfestival.org
or call (800)-868-FEST.
Kathryn
Sargent is a music reviewer, interviewer, and the editor of Aquarius.
Contact her at aquarius-editor@mindspring.com.
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