October 2007 CDs
Yoga One
Yoga. These days, it's practically synonymous with living. Quietly, one practitioner at a time, this wonderful gift of the East has insinuated itself into American lifestyles, and the trend continues to grow. And along with it? Music for stretches and asanas and meditation.
And Bruno Guez' Quango Music Group has led the way, breaking musical ground with sounds from musicians around the world to inspire relaxation and reflection. It was Guez and Quango that brought us the music of Talvin Singh, Kruder and Dorfmeister, Zero 7, Koop, and other artistic geniuses that have lulled and nurtured us over the last few years with their easygoing downbeat and chillout sounds.
Like other yoga teachers around the country, Amy and Michael Caldwell, yoga instructors and operators of downtown San Diego's Yoga One Studio, have been playing Guez' music in their classes. Struck by the thought that “a specially sequenced CD could be an incredible support for [their] students,” they made their way through the L.A. traffic to meet with Guez. Out of that meeting came Yoga One , a collection of world, dub, and chillout grooves, each track selected and ordered to fir with the flow of Yoga One's interdisciplinary Hatha Yoga classes.
The album is unique, from start to finish. I practice my own brand of yoga at home between writing and editing sessions, and I love the way this CD starts me out slow and gets me moving, freeing up my body and mind for… well, for Nothing At All. If you live in north county and never make it past the merge—or maybe you're not a SD resident at all—don't think there's nothing here for you. No no no. I'm sure it's fabulous at the studio, but it'll bring out the yogi in you wherever you are. And put a relaxed smile on your face.
Kudos to Amy and Michael and Bruno and the musicians for an exceptionally fine experiential CD!
—Chiwah
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Nour
Malouma has been creating music since she was twelve, but both she and her music are new to most of us here. Born in the sand dunes of Mauritamia, a desolate African country, in this CD (whose title means ‘light') she weaves Western electronic and blues influences into a base of traditional Moorish instrumentation that includes a harp played only by women.
Oozing sensuous vocals, the music is unique and exotic, its rhythms growing out of a desert where Arab, Berber and West African sounds have ridden on the winds for millennia. But pleasant to the ear as her music is, it hasn't made life easy for Malouma. At the age of sixteen she stirred up so much controversy with a song critical of Muslim polygamists for turning their older wives into the street and taking younger women in their place that adversaries threw stones at her and her music was banned by Mauritamia's military government.
Forced out of the local music scene, she nonetheless continued writing and recording her music, she turned to performing in other countries and for opposition political rallies at home. Her music is grounded in compassion for the men and women of her country even as it evokes the deep emotional unrest that inevitably surfaces when old ways meet new values. One of her party's political goals being the restoration of harmony in Mauritamia, she uses her music and her political influence (having recently been elected as one of the country's 56 senators) to that end.
This is music that is making a real difference in the world. The CD makes an unmistakable contribution to keeping musical tradition alive while bringing it into the new millennium, culminating in a flavor I love and that I hope you will enjoy as well.
—Chiwah
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