Music and Media Focus

Album: Longitudes & Latitudes
Artist: Lawrence Blatt
Website: www.lawrenceblatt.com

It’s been about two and a half years since I had the pleasure of writing about guitarist/composer Lawrence Blatt’s excellent previous release, Emergence. That feature article contained a good deal of information about Lawrence’s musical background, so readers who may be interested are encouraged to check out the link to it. One thing I’ve appreciated about his albums is that they are often based on interesting and unusual concepts. While Emergence was centered around a scientific theory of patterns found in nature, his latest release, Longitudes & Latitudes has a different inspiration. Continue reading →

Album: Source of Compassion
Artists: Howard Givens and Madhavi Devi
Websites: www.howardgivens.com
www.madhavidevi.com

Howard Givens and Madhavi Devi are two highly regarded artists whose work I’ve been familiar with separately dating back to the 1990’s. Howard is a musician and producer extraordinaire creating his own ambient electronic music as well as working on numerous other artist’s projects at the famed Spotted Peccary Music label of which he is a founder. Madhavi Devi is an innovative harpist, sacred soundscape creator, and visual artist who I knew as Cheryl Gallagher when her smooth jazz album Kinetic came out in 1999, which was one of my favorites at the time. So it is interesting to find them coming together so many years later to blend their talents on a brand new album of spiritually focused music entitled Source of Compassion. From my first listen, I could tell this was a proverbial “match made in heaven.”

Continue reading →

Album: Shanti Samsara
Artist: Ricky Kej
Website: http://shantisamsara.com/

I don’t believe that I have ever begun a feature article with a disclaimer, but I will say at the outset that the scope and magnitude of Shanti Samsara is so expansive, that whatever I can fit within the bounds of this article will just be scratching the surface, and that readers are encouraged to visit the website for the full picture. That said, Shanti Samsara is a masterwork from Ricky Kej of India who won the GRAMMY in the new age category in 2014 with his collaborator, South African flutist Wouter Kellerman for their album, Winds of Samsara, which paid tribute to Ghandi and Martin Luther King. Shanti Samsara, however, is much more than an album. Subtitled “World Music For Environmental Consciousness,” Continue reading →

Album: Beyond Words
Artist: Dan Chadburn
Website: www.danchadburn.com

Pianist and composer Dan Chadburn tells an interesting story about a pivotal point in his life that occurred while he was performing a Bach suite in a recital. Although he forgot almost all of the final movement, Dan shares: “Rather than take an early exit from the stage, I improvised the passage in a ‘Bach a la Chadburn’ style. I hold that recital experience as a defining moment, in that it helped to unlock my own creative voice.” Dan’s creative voice has certainly been shaped by a wide variety of experiences from classical training, to earning a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance, studying film scoring at U.C.L.A, and earning a Master of Music in Electroacoustic Composition from London’s City University. Continue reading →

Album: An Endless Premonition
Artist: Carl Weingarten
Website: http://www.mphase.com/

I always find it interesting to write about a new release from an artist I’ve written about previously to get a look at their current stylistic direction and artistic arc. In the case of the latest album by ambient guitarist Carl Weingarten, that arc is more of a full circle, as he returns to a style he explored in earlier recordings. His last album, which I wrote about, Life Under Stars, was a bit of a departure into “cinematic jazz” with Americana influences. However, the one before that, Panomorphia, was more along the lines of what I referred to as “sonic tapestries,” which relied heavily on looping, layering, and spacey effects, some of which brought to mind the music of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp. His new album, An Endless Premonition, is somewhat of a return to this style that Carl has been exploring for three decades. Continue reading →

Album: Whispers From Silence
Artists: Tom Moore and Sherry Finzer
Websites: http://www.senseofpurposecommunications.com/
http://www.sherryfinzer.com/

“All movement comes from stillness. All sound comes from silence.” These words from the back cover of the new album by Phoenix-based musicians Tom Moore and Sherry Finzer, set the stage for their collaborative music that “uses sound and silence to help facilitate a deeply meditative experience for the listener. Whispers From Silence is music that helps you shift your attention from the external world to a more subtle experience of ‘Feeling and Being’” according to Tom and Sherry. Continue reading →

Album: When I Remember
Artist: Kevin Kern
Website: http://kevinkern.com/

I like the quote that accompanies pianist Kevin Kern’s photo on his new album release: “Our memories make us who we are. Mine are set to music.” These memories form the inspiration for the appropriately titled, When I Remember, which according to Kevin is his effort to “reach back to my roots and draw on the richly diverse influences that played such an important part in guiding the development of my musical voice.” And there have been many influences and memories over the years for this official Steinway Artist whose work has included classical, jazz, pop, new age, and more.

Continue reading →