Layne Redmond - Invoking the Muse
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CD Details
Artist: Layne RedmondEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2004-07-20
Music Label: Sounds True
Soundtracks:
- Radiant Pleasure
- Moon's Lament
- Hymn To The Muse
- Sweet Desire
- The Whirler
- Uma
- The Proclaimer
- Seven Heaven
- The Golden Hive
Music reviews of Invoking the Muse
Music Review: Sultry, intricate drumsongs celebrating inspiration and the feminine
Rating: 5 Stars
Drummer and drum historian Layne Redmond offers nine hypnotically meditative compositions, each featuring a unique and often esoteric beat sounded by at least two different kinds of drums, and layered with dreamy flutes, violin and wordless vocalise descants. Each piece is an invocation to one of the nine Greek Muses, goddesses of creativity: Kalliopeia (epic poetry), Euterpe (music), Melpomene (song and tragedy), Erato (music of mystical and erotic love), Terpsikhore (dance), Urania (astronomy, mathematics and prophesy), Kleio (history and heroic poetry), Thaleia (comedy and idyllic poetry), and Polyhymnia (sacred hymns and meditation). This album is relaxing to unwind to, and should be particularly fascinating for drummers or dancers to listen to and try to perform along with. Some drumming albums can be boring and repetitive to the verge of pointlessness, but the gentle rhythmic interplay of the dual drummers in here is so well and intelligently crafted that, to me, it never ceases to intrigue. "Invoking the Muses" is truly a delight to the senses! All the tempos are slow to moderate, and the beat structures for each track are as follows: #1 - in seven; #2 - a slow three or six; #3 - actually in phrases of sixteen, but can be thought of in a slow four or a medium eight if sixteen is too hard to count along with; #4 - a moderate "African" six; #5 - a faster six; #6 - this one's a real brain twister, with measures decreasing in size from eight to seven to six and so on in increments all the way down to one, at which point the eight-beat-measure begins over again (a fun challenge to drum along with and aptly dedicated to the Muse of mathematics!); #7 - a funky, upbeat eight; #8 - another one in seven, composed by Glen Velez; #9 - a spacey, beatless melange of crooning, bells and Tibetan bowls. The performers are Layne Redmond on Remo frame drums, vocals, tambourines and other assorted percussion, Tommy Brunjes on additional drums and percussion, Steve Gorn on bansuri flute, Vicki Richards on violin, and Ruth Cunningham and Laurel Masse on vocals. Layne Redmond's previous album, "Chanting the Chakras," combines the chanting of sacred syllables of nada yoga with meaty, interesting drum rhythms. (It's repetitive in a purposeful, meditiational way, but a unique listening experience nonetheless.)
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Description of Invoking the Muse
In her most inspired recording to date, Layne Redmond offers listeners Invoking the Muse?a landscape of haunting melodies and mesmerizing layers of rhythm and harmony dedicated to the power of the Muse. While researching the ancient music of Greece, Layne Redmond?Drum! magazine?s 2002 Percussionist of the Year?discovered the searingly beautiful "Hymn to the Muse" written in 157 AD, and was inspired to create a musical tribute to each of the Nine Muses. Some of the most renowned names in world music, jazz, and Medieval chant join Layne Redmond on this stunning collection, including Laurel Massé, co-founder of the Grammy® award-winning Manhattan Transfer; Ruth Cunningham, who performed as a member of Anonymous 4 for ten years; Steve Gorn, whose flute opens Paul Simon?s recent album; and master percussionist, arranger, and producer Tommy Brunjes. The Muses taught the use of intuition and prophecy as a way to self-knowledge?a knowledge that is gained through self-induced trance, meditation, singing, and dreaming. Now, on Invoking the Muse, listeners will hear the echoes of the Muses themselves in these powerful sacred hymns that are sure to open the heart and invite transformation.Repetitive trance rhythms generate ecstatic mind-states when experienced in the proper setting, but they can just be monotonous on a CD. Layne Redmond occasionally succumbs to groove tedium, but not often. She was a member of percussionist Glen Velez's ensemble in the 1980s and early '90s. While Velez was a rhythmic theoretician, Redmond has always had a penchant for the mystical and mythological side of drumming, especially as it relates to the feminine, and her music has gravitated towards sound healing, chant, and trance.
On Invoking the Muse, she's set up hymns to the nine muses. The effect can be stunning on tracks like "Moon's Lament" with soprano Ruth Cunningham and bansuri flute player Steve Gorn dipping serpentine melodies out of a bed of womens' choral voices, all propelled by the unerring frame drum rhythms of Redmond and Tommy Brunjes. Besides her original compositions, Redmond reprises Glen Velez's serene, mbira-based "Seven Heaven," which she and Gorn originally recorded with Velez in 1987. When the soprano voices sound like a parody of angelic sighs, Invoking the Muse can get wifty, but Layne Redmond generally locates a serene balance between the ethereal and the groove. --John Diliberto
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