05/12/07
NEW EARTH
AL GROMER KHAN & AMELIA CUNI/Monsoon Point: Reissued to coincide with the pic “Sublime”, this 1995 yoga classic sounds as good today as it did a dozen years ago. A mediation set that finds that inner chord to make a massage more relaxing or meditation more mind expanding, this duo knows how to make music that takes you within. A wonderful set of soundscapes that defines the aspects of sonic getaway.
2714
CHINMAYA DUNSTER/Buddha Moon: A collection of ragas inspired by the phases of the moon that’s just the right length for an hour massage and is a lot more invigorating to listen to than some half ass budget compilation that pretends to be geared to bodywork. Music that gives you an enlightened feeling, this is what new age was supposed to be about before it was commercially co-opted into a marketing thing. This set intersects on the corner of new age and world beat and adds a lot to both.
2702
KAVI /Unconditional Love: An unvoiced problem a lot of tourists have with real new age music is that there just isn’t enough sexy new age music. Unless you are looking for music specifically geared to being a soundtrack to going within, there isn’t a lot you can play in the background when you want an exotic mood and the average bellydance record is too high octane. Kavi comes to the rescue with a sensual new age set that sends things along a new and different tangent. This is music that certainly helps you relax, but it is also geared to other kinds of stress relief, if you know what we mean. Could be new age for non-new age fans and well worth checking out.
2705
RASA/Saffron Blue: There’s a lot of 16th century monk music that sounds like Elizabethan love songs and Rasa plays that kind of devotional music, of course, from another angle. Loaded with trance music from deepest, darkest India, this duo and their pals bring sensuality into the sound that makes it all seems so deceptively simple but really houses something deeper that will keep bringing you back into the tent. Exotic music that is more than geared to take you away whether you are meditating or not. Well done.
2708
Volume 30/Number 193
May 12, 2007
MIDWEST RECORD
830 W. Route 22 #144
Lake Zurich, IL., 60047
CHRIS SPECTOR, Editor and Publisher
(c)2007 Midwest Record