Review: Elemental Tangents

Composer: Stephen Paine
Photographer: Tracey Swain
ISBN: 9780993252105

Full disclosure: "Elemental Tangents" was offered to me by the photographer in exchange for a review.  As I adore photography, and music, I was happy to do so.

"Elemental Tangents" is a unique fusion of images, and sound.  The elements of earth, air, fire, water, and spirit are encapsulated in the imagery of Tracey Swain's photographs, and the music of Stephen Paine.

I appreciate good photography, and the music being in the style of ynth, chill out, meditation style is the perfect accompaniment.  It is a unique experience to peruse photographs with music made to accompany it, or to listen to music with imagery designed to enhance the meditative experience.  It's hard to explain this fusion properly; it has to be experienced.

Stephen Paine's music is evocative of Enigma, and Deep Forest.  It is the style of music that allows you drift to other places, which is perfect if you use Tracey's photographs to guide you.

It's not just a CD of music with clever liner notes; it's a book with music designed for reflection on the elements.

I would have preferred this to be a coffee table book, so that the photographs could be better appreciated, with a slot for the CD rather than a CD case-sized book.  This is just a minor quibble.

Would I recommend it?  Yes.  If you enjoy meditation, if you enjoy photography, if you like meditative/chill music, then this is definitely for you.  It truly is an experience.

Witches' Reel by The Familiars

Ha Ha Lili - Sa Dingding

Here is the latest video offering from Sa Dingding, the Chinese musician and artist whose new album, "Harmony" has just been released on CD this week. I wrote a review of her first album, "Alive" here.

The song is called "Ha Ha Lili"; the full title apparently translating to "The Story of Heaven and Earth".

Jillian LaDage - Music Manifesto

Back, in July 2009, I did a review of Jillian LaDage's album, "The Ancestry" here.  If you listened to it, and enjoyed it, then please read below.

---

February 2, 2010


To Friends and Fans of Music Everywhere,

Out of the blue I woke up this morning thinking this:-

Can we make a difference? Can we tell the media what it is we want to hear? Can a virtual unknown Celtic singer (me, Jillian LaDage) garner the attention of a music industry, so commercially focused, in one year's time from the fans?

Of course we can! Why not?! I would not be here without you.

Is this insane? Possibly.

Here is my question to you; can you add 10 friends, family members, and acquaintances as Fans on the Jillian LaDage Facebook Fan Page and the free email mailing list via Join the Tarith Cote Community on my Official Website? Can you add 50?  100?  What about the newspaper boy, the mail man, the lady in line at the post office, your neighbor down the street? What if at years’ end this page goes from 38 fans to over 5,000? What could happen? Can you imagine? Would the media and music industry take notice? Would they hear our voice? Will you join me in an experiment that lets your voice be heard and is solely directed by you, the fans?

Tell anyone and everyone from now through December 31, 2010. Let’s show the music industry what we as consumers can do. Add your friends through Facebook with a post on my fan wall saying, "(Insert name of the friend, who referred you, here) and I am in!" Copy and paste this message to your wall, emails, letters, flyers, posters, etc.  Whatever you have your hands on, use it. Got free advertising space?  Use it! Add it to your signature. The ways are endless and let’s create our own phenomenon. One powered by friends and fans of music!

Truly Yours,
Jillian LaDage
Jillian LaDage on Facebook
The Official Website

The Ballinderry River Sings!

I listen to the Coast and Country podcast and on last week's episode "Ripples of the Ballinderry River", Helen Marks explored the Ballinderry River in Northern Ireland.

For me, the most interesting report related to a sound engineer, Professor Paul Moore, who has recorded the sound of Ballinderry River, using sensors floating on top of the water, and converted these recordings to a song, or music, in order to give the river a voice - "a soundscape, as well as a landscape". It is startling: the usual gurgling sounds, but with a haunting backdrop, almost like whale song, which Professor Moore referred to as the Ban Sidhe of the river. It certainly got my attention; I was in awe.

I wish I could get a copy of some of the recordings, but, alas, I have to make do with the snippet broadcast on the podcast. They are endeavouring to expand their recordings to other rivers, and recording the individual songs.

Our Way of Life by Zoar

The Ancestry

I was listening to the Midsummer edition of The Celtic Myth Podshow and was taken aback by a track called "Midsummer" by Jillian LaDage. It transported me away to another time and place and I instantly loved it. I was so taken by it that I immediately downloaded it on iTunes, in the hope the other tracks were just as brilliant, before I realised I could preview the song as the website of Tarith Cote.

Even so, I wasn't disappointed. The album is described as "a journey that leads from the medieval sands of Turkey and the Byzantine Empire to the moors and legends of the ancient Celts". Its certainly a mixture of sounds, and haunting ones at that, but remains cohesive throughout combining sumptious music with storytelling songs in a sensual voice.

I wish I could elucidate on how this album made me feel. Its very much how I responded to Sa Dingding's "Alive" album, and like that album, I have been playing these tracks non-stop since I downloaded them. Please go and try the samples of Jillian LaDage's album at the Tarith Cote website and let yourself be whisked off to lands of wonder.

Rating: 4.5/5

Alive ~ Sa Dingding

Was watching the Proms on BBC the other night and happened to catch performances and interviews with the winner of the World Music award, Sa Dingding. I was instantly mesmerised. Her music is unique, and I can only describe it by waying its a blend of Enigma, Björk, and Lisa Gerrard; combining eastern and western music.

Sa Dingding originates from the plains of Mongolia where she says: "Before we start to talk, we are taught to sing". She is the first artist in China to sing in Sanskrit, but she also uses Mandarin, Tibetan and a self-created language. Listening to her work, however, I found words unnecessary; her songs transmitting emotions direct to the heart and soul.

At 18, Sa Dingding became well known in "dance music" circles in China, but her spiritual practices expanded her musical output and I would not be surprised if she became a worldwide phenomenon. Sa creates her own costumes and choreographs her own performances and is as graceful and elegant as she is beautiful.

This particular album has the following tracks listed:

1. Mama tian na (Mantra)
2. Alive (Mantra)
3. Holy Incense (Tibet Version)
4. Oldster by Xilian River
5. Tuo Luo Ni
6. Lagu Lagu
7. Flickering with Blossoms
8. Holy Incense (Chinese Version)
9. Alive (Chinese Version)
10. Qin Shang

This is the YouTube version of the video for Alive:

I have never been appreciative of Chinese music, even though my father was once keen on Chinese Opera, preferring instead their cinematic releases. Sa Dingding is apt to expand my musical horizons - I certainly hope there are more artists like her on the horizon.

Rating: 5/5

Songs of Witchcraft & Magic

Well, what can I say about this particular CD? I love it. I truly do. I play it over and over and I've just had to replace my original copy (purchased at the Beltane Bash in London 2007) because it was worn. The added advantage of replacing the disc is that the replacement can also be used in my car CD player; the previous copy could not.

Various artists have contributed to this album, compiled by the Museum of Witchcraft and produced by Wild Goose Records, and each track is unique though all could be termed "folk music". Please don't let this put you off. Every song is fascinating and is accompanied by two pages of text giving the lyrics, details of the origin of the song, and reasons for inclusion on the album. In fact, the little booklet is fascinating on its own.

I do have my favourites, of course. Young Orphy gets me singing along in the car, or out in the woods, which has afford me a few odd looks from fellow walkers. The song that currently holds my fascination is The Brown Girl. There is something about the vibrato in the voice of the songstress that is like listening to a stringed instrument. The song itself is almost a lament and the emotion of the vibrato, a cappella, lends itself beautifully to the tale. The Two Magicians is a bit bawdy, but lots of fun and I imagine a group of people singing the chorus whilst waving their beers in the air.

I imagine I will need to replace the CD, and booklet (the original was ruined accidentally in my handbag when a water bottle imploded) again, but it doesn't matter. One day, my iPod will work and this album will be the first to be uploaded. In the meantime, I am hoping a second CD of "Songs of Witchcraft and Magic" will be forthcoming.

The CD is available from Wild Goose Records, The Occult Art Company online, and various shops, including Wicca Moon in London.

The Kilmartin Sessions: The Sounds of Ancient Scotland

I bought this CD at the same time I purchased "Compositions of Stone" from The Megalithic Portal. At first, I hated it and, in fact, it has sat indoors not being played at all. I found it rather grating.

However, I grabbed it by accident on my way out the door on my way to work. It was all I had in the car, so I played it and I have to admit it wasn't how I remembered. Now, either the brownies have been moving things in my house again, or I was in a strange mood when I first heard it.

It is a mix of strange musical combinations, but this is because the musicians use original and/or reconstructed instrumentswhich, although odd to modern ears, our ancestors would have been familiar. Instruments such as the 2,000 year old Caprington horn, the carnyx (the Carnyx was a long Celtic drone instrument made of beaten bronze and held vertically so that the sound travels from more than four metres above the ground. It was known through much of Europe from about 200BC to 200AD and was widely depicted, notably on the Gundestrup bowl which shows three carnyxes being played simultaneously. The end of the instrument is in the form of a wild boar's head, and it has a movable tongue and lower jaw!), and bird-bone flutes.

The CD is divided into six sections: Bones and Stones, Skin and Bone, Horn and Bronze, the Bronze Age Orchestra, The Sound of Battle (which is where the carnyx is heard), Hearing Pictish Stones, and the Cry of Prayer. Its certainly not your usual compilation of music! Some of the tracks sounds very similar, but this does not detract from the allure of the CD. Listening to it, I find myself being transported to other places. For reasons of safety, I have had to remove it from my car to be replaced by more conventional music. ;)

The CD is a project of the Kilmartin House Museum, which is an award winning world-class centre for archaeology and landscape interpretation established to protect, investigage and interpret the more than 350 ancient monuments within a six-mile radius of the village of Kilmartin, Argyll: 150 of which are prehistoric. I am not sure if funds from the sale of this CD contribute towards their fund-raising, but I hope so.

If you have a chance, do go and get a copy of this CD - it amazing!

Compositions of Stone

CD by Mike Simmons
Available from Megalithic Portal, where you can sample two of the tracks.

Track titles:

1. Carnac - The Alignments
2. The Ring of Brodgar
3. Rollright Stones
4. Merry Maidens
5. Long Meg and her Daughters
6. Castlerigg
7. Avebury
8. Stonehenge

****************************************************

I bought this CD after someone listed it as an "unusual Jule gift idea". I have had a difficult time of late finding new ambient music for background to my meditations. So, when this was listed (twice), I went and listened to the samples and then purchased it.

I only wish I could listen to it the whole way through. It is a wonderful CD, but everytime I listen to it I drift off to sleep. Now, this is a good and a bad thing. As someone who occasionally has difficulty going to sleep, I am grateful to have found a cure, but I am also sad that I cannot actually get the whole way through this CD, as the music is rather enchanting.

I can recommend this CD, even though I have not heard all of it. It is pleasant, unobtrusive and a little different from most CDs in its category. Listen to the samples, buy it and see if you don't feel the same way.