Liquid Bloom
Title:
Heart of the Shamans:
Ceremonial Medicine Songs
Label:
White Swan Records
Released:
27th Jan 2015
Liquid
bloom is a side project of Amani Friend (of the Desert Dwellers) with
a focus on trance music, trance music that is in the traditional
sense rather than the dance genre of the modern day. Drawing
inspiration from indigenous
ceremonial dances of New Mexico’s deserts and pueblos, and sacred
traditional ayahuasca invocations from Amazonian rainforest cultures.
The album’s liner notes offer guidance for participatory, immersive listening. A succession of mudras – traditional hand gestures from India believed to provide physical points of reference and increase energy flow throughout the body – are also suggested to enhance the participant’s experience, each specific to one of the album’s six major compositions.
The
release begins in a dark and moody manner with 'Ceremony of the
Heart' balanced with flutes, ethereal vocals, chants and field
recordings of nature and the piece gradually becomes more soothing
the further you progress. In contrast 'Cosmic Soul Lotus' focuses
more on the vocal aspect which I can only compare to a wonderful
mish-mash of Jose Padilla and Azam Ali.
Once
again 'Healing Fire Breath' contains ethereal and alluring vocals but
comes across more as a song than a ceremonial chant layered over slow
tribal rhythms, didge and flutes. The spoken words on 'Temple of the
Goddess' are once again reminiscent to Jose Padilla's 'Navigator'
album layered over ethereal vocals, chimes and field recordings of
nature.
The
spoken word of 'Ecstatic Grounding' switches to male vocal as an
introduction to the feminine main body of the piece while the back
ground music combines the sounds of India and Arabic percussion.
While 'Sacred Blessing' is
more soothing,
the percussion is dropped for chimes and field recordings of nature
and
the feminine and masculine vocals overlap.
While
the 'Relaxation Tape' like spoken words are vaguely reminiscent.
As
an added bonus there's also two tracks re-mixed by Medicina 'Jaguar
Dreaming' and 'Roots of the Earth' which although are more dance
orientated they're far from hectic more akin to Lumin's 'Ketri'
album.
On
my first listen I guess I wasn't in the right mood but re-visting a
few weeks later the experience was completely different. Having
previously heard Ixchel Prrisma vocals for a Desert Dwellers e.p.
only one of the tracks grabbed me. But alongside Sarah West, Robert Mirabel and
Rara Avis these collective vocals come
to the forefront
and really shine on this release.
Review
by Woodzee.
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