:: September/October 2004 Volume 3/Number 5

CD Reviews

 

Miles Beyond
Suzanne Teng & Mystic Journey
Featuring Gilbert Levy
Autumn Light Productions
Here’s a release from one of Topanga Canyon’s sweetest artists. With Miles Beyond, flutist Suzanne Teng and percussionist Gilbert Levy string together a series of musical gems that feel as honest and as pure as any instrumental music heard today. The music blends Hindu and Asian influences with hints of African rhythms to complete the feel.

Of all of Teng’s releases, this album seems appropriately titled since it feels like it goes miles beyond anywhere she has gone before as a composer. Miles Beyond exemplifies Teng and Levy’s growth as artists and as human beings with beautiful melodies that just soar through the ears with grace and ease. Levy uses Indian tablas, khol, kartals and an assortment of shakers to produce a rich steady rhythm for which Teng performs her magic on the flute. All the tunes here were written, arranged and produced by Teng and Levy with some help from Fritz Heede.
– Michael R. Mollura

Speaking The Mamma Tongue
John McDowell
Raven Recording
Produced and mixed by composer, recording artist and performer John McDowell, Raven Records Speaking the Mamma Tongue offers a rather familiar tribal-flavored new age album that doesn’t always stand on its own as a unique product. With some nicely sung call-and-response melodies by Tibetan singer Dadon on “Maybe We Should Stand Back,” the album has moments of rich texture and harmony. McDowell’s voice-over poetry, however, interferes with the purity of the message. Well intended, and spirited, the poetry feels very simple and too intentional and takes the listener out of the music.

On “Owl Dream,” the sweet percussive tracks are accompanied by some riveting Native American flute tracks featuring Raul Saldana. Thankfully, no lyrical love poems are delivered over these gorgeous melodies.

“Face The Wind” combines the efforts of Smoke Dance Champion Pura Fe with some superb rhythmic touches on the tablas by Ty Burhoe. While the vocal track tends to repeat itself too much, the melodies stay etched in the mind as a myriad of cultures blend impressively.
All the compositions on the album were composed by McDowell and offer a kind fusion of African, Native North American, Tibetan and Middle Eastern and even Latin cultures. Speaking the Mamma Tongue is an ambitious attempt to bring together an assortment of world music influences and succeeds on many fronts, but also remains too familiar to anyone who knows the music he imports.
– Michael R. Mollura

One
Yuval Ron
Magda Music
Composer Yuval Ron is one of the great master Sufi musicians of our time and is seldom acknowledged for his efforts as an artist and an active participant in the communities he performs for. With the release of his most recent project “One” Yuval collaborates with many other masters such as Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Yair Dalal, and Azam Ali (Vas) as well as a super group of Middle Eastern musicians backing them. If this effort is not one of the finest recordings of Sacred music ever produced, then it is certainly deserving of every award next to that achievement.

The album sonically personifies a complex spiritual journey with each track based on the sacred chants of the three religious traditions of the Middle East (Judaism, Sufism and the Christian Armenian Church). Each piece of music leads into the next, like a narrated montage of images in a film, with sound bites recorded in the dunes of the Sinai desert and on the shore of the Red Sea in Egypt. The music is a combination of soulful chanting, ambient sounds of the desert and of course the incredible music that is primarily soft and ethereal and traditional. All the tracks arranged and orchestrated by Yuval Ron, the music sends shivers into the heart and awakens the deepest feelings of love and compassion captured ever on a record.

“Ahava Yshana” (Old Love) is based on a traditional Armenian chant and features Omar Faruk Tekbilek’s exquisite voice blending with Chris Belth’s soul-wrenching performance on the duduk. “Like A Rose” is a short piece based on a Bedouin poem recitation and features Yair Dalal on violin. On “Resistance” Ron calls upon Bleth’s duduk and Teklbilek’s mastery of the ney to provide a safe and harmonic musical journey through the heart.

Specially worth noting is Azam Ali’s enchanting vocal contributions on “Mirage” which sends chills through the sacred in all of us.

From the first track to the end “One” is a fantastic album that should be considered for a Grammy and certainly among the greatest collection of world music talent since The Last Temptation of Christ soundtrack.
– Michael R. Mollura

Breathe to Beat the Blues
Amy Weintraub
2004
‘I’m going to tell you how yoga saved my life and how . . . yogic breathing exercises called pranayama can change your life too,” explains Amy Weintraub in the introduction to her new cd Breathe to Beat the Blues.

Weintraub’s voice is casual and soothing and the music is unobtrusive as she begins guiding listeners through ten pranayama, or life breath, mood-modulating exercises. Relaying her own experience with depression and acknowledging her own imperfections, she makes a personal connection with her students.

The directions for the first two practices, spinal flexes and a centering meditation, are clear. The results are immediate. Coming out of victory breath of the centering meditation, there is already a sense of heightened energy and clarity.

One wonderful surprise on Breathe to Beat the Blues is the reoccurring alternate nostril purifying breath (nadi shodhana). This pranayama exercise is not taught during the average yoga class, but the technique is simple, relaxing and invigorating.

Some of the later breathing exercises that include standing postures and more esoteric movements, like ‘victory goddess salute’ and ‘breath to fortify the nerves’ or ‘bellows breath’ (bastrika), are a bit confusing to follow, and the complexity takes away from the calming and energizing experience. Of course, after practicing with the cd regularly, the exercises would become more automatic. While it is neither necessary to be an expert nor depressed, this cd is best suited to those with at least some yoga experience.

Luxuriating in the fourteen minute guided relaxation and closing meditation at the end, a balanced mood permeates - beneficial for anyone trying to beat the blues.
– Nora Zelevansky

Sacred Movement
White Swan Yoga Master, Vol. 1
Music for Flow Yoga
Selected by Master Teacher Max Strom
Music can transport us outside our mental chatter or sink us deeper into our awareness. While some flow classes groove to a hip or funky soundtrack, in Sacred Movement, Venice’s Sacred Movement studio co-owner and teacher Max Strom has concocted a compilation that draws the attention inward.

There is fluidity in the transitions; songs interlock with a seamless quality so the listener doesn’t realize they are listening to a variety of artists. Most lyrics are not in English, like the sacred sounds of Sanskrit, or the refrain Om Mane Padme Hum. Karuna, by Stellamara is one of my favorite tracks, rhythmic and haunting, without lyrics. The Sun by B-Tribe invokes not the lightness of the sun, but its fire. L.A. teacher Steve Ross contributes the hypnotic Om Invocation. Heart Sutra by Bruce BecVar and Nada Shakti is sonorous and echoing.

I used the CD as a soundtrack not only for several flow classes, but also for my restorative class. The progression from active to languorous compositions guided the students into a meditative state by the end. More than someone’s favorite yoga music, Sacred Movement is a well-chosen assemblage, selected by a teacher familiar with the practice-enhancing effects of music.
– Felicia M. Tomasko

Tunula Eno
Samite
Triloka Records
Samite is one of Uganda, Africa’s greatest gifts and Tunula Eno is one of the finest albums of his six-album discography. For a man who has suffered the torments of difficult political climates under dictator Idi Amin and has experienced the assassination of many of his brothers first hand, his loving music and soul is a testament of what the human spirit is capable of under extraordinary circumstances.

Formerly on the Windham Hill label and now on Triloka, Samite’s latest album stands up to the melodies he is known for creating. His soft soulful vocals and his consistent Kalimba performance bring you into his world where love is always present.

Consisting of 14 tracks – most written by Samite with traditional songs he has rearranged, Tunula Eno is a consistent series of sensitive traditional African ballads that are filled with gentle melodic hooks that keep the listener in the heart. The first track “Kite Kitere” features Samite’s Kalimba playing and the steady percussion by Jeff Haynes. Like most of the album, the tune is a groove-based African chant that just makes you want to dance barefoot, feel the light of the sun and allow the grace to hug our spirit.

Tunula Eno is one of Samite’s most accessible records that allows the listener to feel a part of him and the world we are so blessed to be a part of.
– Michael R. Mollura