|
|
 |
CD Review
|
| Click Here to go back. |
Bay Area Reporter, CD Review >>
Chöying Drolma & Steve Tibbetts
Selwa
Six Degrees Records
(Excerept) Attempts to render ancient sacred chants accessible and relevant to modern day westerners are fraught with peril. If the chants are presented untouched, they may leave cold listeners who are not at one with the idiom. (Observers of authentic Tibetan and Native American rituals sometimes feel that they hold far greater meaning for the participants than for those viewing from the outside). Conversely, if chants and prayers are “modernized,” they too often find their spiritual essence diluted by some less than holy amalgam of softened harmonies, pop beats, synthesized space effects, and digitalized nature sounds.
Both these discs retain and magnify the spiritual essence of the ancient traditions they represent. The most successful is Selwa, which can be translated in part as “luminous clarity.” A follow-up to the 1997 CD entitled Chö, Selwa reunites renegade Tibetan Buddhist nun Chöying Drolma with cutting edge guitarist Steve Tibbetts. The fiercely independent nun entered a nunnery at age 10 in order to avoid a life of marriage, sacrifice, compromise, and “low birth” (the significance of the word “woman” in Tibetan). She has since founded a pioneering school that teaches nuns mathematics, English, and basic medicine as well as the meaning of texts usually understood only by men.
Chö sings with rare, unspoiled beauty. Her chants to buddhahood and the Great Mother (sometimes complemented by the voices of Lodro Sangmo and Sherab Palmo) are enhanced and deepened by a fascinating array of percussive and occasionally thunderous sounds from guitarist Tibbetts and Marc Anderson. This profound musical fusion opens portals to a faith whose teachings transcend verbiage.
-- Jason Victor Serinus
11/11/04
|
| Click Here to go back. |
|
 |
|
|
|
