World Music
by Cheryl Stiles and Kathryn Sargent

      Spenser's Fairy Queen has nothing on Sarah Brightman. In her magical new offering, La Luna, her crystalline voice ventures into fey regions with tales of the king of the elves, the son of the moon born to a gypsy woman, love, death and passion. Brightman's incredible range spans from the operatic sophistication of “La Califfa” to the haunting, pop lovesong from the television show, Roswell, “Here With Me” (my personal favorite). Her title song, “La Luna,” is a tender and enchanting love song, while “Gloomy Sunday” is a jazzy reflection on the impermanence of life. She even gives us “A Whiter Shade of Pale“ (of Procol Harum fame), “Scarborough Fair”, and a familiar surprise at the end (which I will not ruin for you). Is there nothing this woman cannot sing? The music is symphonic with strong percussion and soaring arrangements. Some of the songs are adaptations of classical pieces, and lyrics are in English, Spanish, Italian and Russian. Brightman's previous album, “One Night in Eden,” hit #1 on Billboard Magazine's “Classical Crossover” chart; and also figured on their pop chart, and her sold-out tour based on that disc was acclaimed by The Washington Post as “. . .the most memorable concert of the year.” It's easy to see why she's sold over six million albums worldwide; Brightman is powerful, complex, and thoroughly enchanting. I can't recommend La Luna highly enough!
-KS

    Michael Thomas Berkley's Images from Earth undertakes-and achieves-the awesome task of telling the history of Planet Earth through music. Following a timeline that begins with the sun rising above a molten horizon, Berkley's masterful storytelling goes on to describe the earth's surface cooling and violently reshaping the planet's crust; the forming of the atmosphere; “The Birth of Rain”; the emergence of lifeforms; man's beginnings; to the present, when we are “Between Terror and Hope” because the Earth is at the mercy of a single species. Rendered in a style he names “modern impressionistic,” Images from Earth is mainly instrumental but for the text and narration by Thomas Berry on “Between Terror and Hope.” Berkley conceived, composed, and produced the album and plays piano, samplers, synthesizers, Simbabwean ngoma, mbira, percussion, drum programming, and offers vocals, treatments, sound designs and effects. Mike Freitas plays dumbek, clay drums, conga, cymbals, shakers, triangle. Ari Langer plays electric violin; Jennifer MacKnight, vocals; Karen Bentley, violin; Linton Hale, North Indian flute; and Glenn Shoonmaker, electric guitar. The sound is a bit like space music, a bit techno, and not a bit like anything else I've heard. This is a very sensitive, multi-textural sound painting of incredible complexity-a masterpiece.
-KS

    Oreade Music is treating us to a new series beginning with The Spirit of Reiki and The Spirit of Feng Shui. The Spirit of Reiki, composed, arranged, and played by Guna Sangah, features violinist Joris van Beek and other instrumentation by Onno Wieten. There are four tracks on Reiki: “Healing Hands,” “Upward Spiral,” “Ascent of the Spirit,” and “Higher Consciousness.” This music is gentle, healing, emotional-just like Reiki, the form of energy healing which addresses emotional and spiritual problems as well as the physical. To facilitate a Reiki healing session, the music has a chime inserted every three minutes to notify the healer of the length of time hand positions have been held. There is a brief introduction to the practice of Reiki in the liner notes-just enough to spark your interest if you've never experienced this gentle healing technique. The composer, Guna Sangah, has long experience in meditation and spiritual healing practices.
-KS

     The Spirit of Feng Shui features the shakuhachi flute music of David Sun, who also composed and arranged the album. The liner notes tell us that the shakuhachi is “a very old instrument, it expresses the wind (feng)-the breath of life (chi); it dances with the sound of the sea (water-shui)-that beautiful eternal rhythm. The point of Feng Shui is to live in a harmonious environment, and the sound of a flute can łenforce the energy of a space.” In a brief but substantive introduction to Feng Shui in the liner notes, Carina Renckens describes the two schools which influenced Feng Shui: the School of Forms and the School of the Compass, and their more recent descendants. She describes the benefits of Feng Shui and lists objects which may “vitalize or neutralize” the energy of a space. Both of these fine offerings would be appropriate for meditation, sound healing, energy work, and more. They're lovely.
-KS

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