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earbashRealTime's new online CD review section, covering new releases in the areas of electronica, noise, contemporary classical and all sounds experimental, with a focus on Australian artists.
Despite the title this is thankfully not a collection of wafting New Age soundscapes designed as a caffeine substitute or early morning 'inspirational moments' for corporate go-getters. Instead it is a serious 2 disc collection of works that leans towards the ethnographic, reflecting the myriad forms of Buddhist practice throughout the globe. Mainly produced by Celestial Harmonies regular, David Parsons (who hails from New Zealand), it includes input and recordings by others including Australia's Michael Askill. The catalyst for this collection appears to have been Parsons' involvement with the exhibition, Buddha: Radiant Awakening, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Disc 1 consists of recordings made by Parsons at the birthplace of Buddhism: the Bodh Gayar township in India. Temples representing most Buddhist countries with their attendant branches and sects are located near the main Indian Mahabodhi temple at the site where Prince Siddharta Gautama achieved enlightenment and became Buddha. Like any good ethnographer, Parsons has sought to record the actual prayer services in situ at select temples with no attempt at artificial staging or intervention. The result is an extremely engaging 'naturalness' in the recordings with a wonderful sense of acoustic environment and humanity (participants pause to sniff or cough—after all this happens every day). This is also a disc to test modern attention spans with marathon prayer sessions that Parsons has indicated still had to be trimmed to fit the CD format. The standout track for me in this set is the Thai Temple recording of the Anguli Mal Sutra where a single male chanter sings plaintively as the distant sounds of the world outside occasionally break the surface momentarily only to disappear again. All is transience. Disc 2 combines old and new, shifting at times from traditional performances into modern depictions of "Buddhism in the 21st century." The recordings generally feature selections from previous Celestial Harmonies releases with a strong Asia-Australasia thread. Riley Lee's shakuhachi finds a place on 2 contemporary tracks by Australian composers James Ashley Franklin and Michael Askill while David Parsons attempts a futurist interpretation of Buddhist tradition with the use of sampled chants (his sample sources are duly noted in the liner notes). Though some of the tracks have a more popular appeal I found this set was less engaging than that on the first CD: in particular, Parsons' mix of sampled chant and synthetic textures makes good ambient fodder in the Bill Laswell vein but its artificiality tends to pastiche next to the human viscerality of the other recordings. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the juxtaposition of the new works with the old is the chance to reflect on the way in which Buddhist musical practice is interpreted by Western composers influenced by the religion's philosophy and/or aesthetics. If you are a fan of Parsons' other recordings of traditional Asian musics this set is worthwhile adding to your collection for the first disc alone. It is also a good general introduction to Buddhist music as it represents traditions from India, Japan, Tibet, Thailand, Laos and Burma along with examples of Western interpretations of those traditions. However, if you're after some quick downtime to cleanse your thoughts before the next AGM you might have to look elsewhere.
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