The Whole Music Experience

World   Dieter Iby Didgeridoo Street Music   Arc Music On visits to YouTube, I have encountered street musicians playing didgeridoo on street corners and sidewalks.   I can’t imagine encountering didgeridoo players on the streets where I reside, however, I can listen to Dieter Iby perform his world fusion on Didgeridoo Street Music .   The musician arranges didgeridoo with West African percussion instruments and he partners with kora player (West African harp) Stefan Charisius on Sim.Mah (Pisces) with spectacular otherworldly results.   Iby also pleases me with his song titles which feature signs of the Zodiac.   I’m not sure if the musician is familiar with astrological energies, but he certainly matches the right song to the right sign. For instance, the opener, Gu.an.na (Taurus) feels sensual and grounding to me similar to the sign Taurus and the track I already mentioned for Pisces also feels right on.   The second track, n...

V.M. Bhatt and Matt Malley Sleepless Nights World Village When I first saw that Vishwa Mohan Bhatt was releasing a recording on World Village, I got excited, but then after I saw that the master Indian slide-guitarist had teamed up with a rock musician, Matt Malley (Counting Crows), I felt somewhat reluctant to review the CD, Sleepless Nights . While the concept of East meets West, musically speaking, intrigues me, some of those collaborations come off as hyperkinetic Bollywood soundtracks. I know some music fans love that type of music, but at this stage of the game, I desperately need music that soothes, not jars my nerves.  I'm not the average music listener and music is my medicine for healing tension and sensitivities. However, I’m a great admirer of V.M. Bhatt and I have several of his Sense World Music recordings in my collection. He’s well-respected in his homeland, India, for good reason, and here in the West, where he came onto the radar after collaborati...

Deobrat Mishra and David Michael Himalayan Crossroad (peaceful melodies featuring sitar and Celtic Harp Purnima Productions and Kind Music There have been many reports cited that spoke about the healing elements of sitar and Celtic harp. Sitar player (from Benares), Deobrat Mishra and Washington State based multi-instrumentalist David Michael (Celtic harp and zither), put musical therapy theories to the test on their recording, Himalayan Crossroads . The exotic sound of the sitar resonates with the misty atmosphere of the Celtic harp and a listener could easily place themselves in a Celtic country or near the Ganges in India. The first track, "Fingers of Dawn" acts as an unfolding Alap where the harp and the sitar get to know one another and familiarize themselves with this unusual terrain. A micro-tonal instrument from an eastern tradition melds with instruments hailing from the west where the eight note scale (7 actual notes), rules. With so many fusion projects b...