Reviews

Red Sands Dreaming

Red Sands Dreaming
by Global Collective
Farren Music America

 

This recording is a collection of traditional Australian Aboriginal music, contemporized by studio effects and synthesized music. I’m a very big fan of Aboriginal music. It ranks in my top five favorite types of music. There’s something about didgeridoos, bullroarers, clapsticks, and rich Aboriginal voices that resonates to my very core. Whatever that something is, it is completely ruined when digitized, processed, and subjected to “hip” studio effects.

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Fire in the Head: Emerald Rose Live

Fire in the Head:
Emerald Rose Live 
by Emerald Rose
Emerald Rose

 

Wow. Just wow.

Emerald Rose is a Pagan band that can really rock, and it shows on this live CD recorded at two shows in Georgia last year. I admit to having a bias against live CDs, both in and out of Pagan music circles; they’re rarely worth listening to, and usually a poorly recorded and engineered throwaway.

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Lute Music for Witches and Alchemists

Lute Music for Witches and Alchemists
by Lutz Kirchhof
Sony Music Entertainment

 

I first spotted this album in a St. Louis record store, while browsing the medieval music section. The title caught my eye, but I didn’t pick it up that day. Every time I went back, I’d look at this CD and think about buying it. Now I wish I’d bought the thing the first time I saw it!

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Onward to Avalon

Onward to Avalon
by Jack Montgomery
Shadowdancer Music

 

Some of you may already know of Jack Montgomery from his writing, but he’s also an excellent musician and lyricist. His rich, compelling voice and deft playing really bring these songs to life. Several other talented vocalists and musicians join him for this album. Featured instruments include keyboards, guitar, bass, drums, tambourine, and mandolin.

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Secret Voices

Secret Voices
by Gaia Consort
Suddenly Naked Arts Collective

 

Gaia Consort is just cool. Let’s get that out of the way right now.

Secret Voices is also pretty cool. If the Eagles and the Indigo Girls suddenly found the Goddess and settled down for twenty years of inner peace and developing their sense of humor, you might get a CD like this. It’s crisp, it’s clean, it’s beautifully-performed — but don’t mistake it for fluff, or the serious points that Christopher Bingham, Sue Tinney, and the rest of Gaia Consort are trying to make might get overlooked.

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Snows of Kilimanjaro

Snows of Kilimanjaro
by Medwyn Goodall
New World Music

Sit back and relax for a good cause. Except for half a minute on the first and last tracks, “Snows of Kilimanjaro” is about as African as bagels and lox. It may not be African, but it is soothing: Medwyn Goodall, who has been at the forefront of New Age music since the early 1990's, turns in a solid performance on this CD, sales of which benefit the Duchess of York’s charity Children in Crisis (www.childrenincrisis.org.uk) a group that helps children in some of the world’s most dangerous countries.

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