Daily OM CD

Daily OM, the daily source for nurturing your mind, body and spirit. Every weekday, Flip Side to Music and DailyOM will turn you on to music to make your life happier, less stressful, more fulfilled and provide you with music to help you to stay centered in our hectic world.

http://www.dailyom.com

Flip Side to Music is happy to share with you the Daily CD from DailyOM.

September 7, 2010
Meditation for Beginners
Jack Kornfield
2001

Jack Kornfeld is an author and the cofounder of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, where he teaches the “most simple and universal” processes of meditation. Problems facing the novice are foremost on Kornfeld’s mind, and speaking in a frank, warming, comfortably raspy, and rooted voice, he narrates stories of ancient traditions and tricks of the trade. “Meditation for Beginners” is a great gift for the stressed-out soul who comes to you for help and has no experience in meditation, or for those who used to meditate but have drifted into a state of getting ready to meditate that can last for months, even years. When we’re distracted in our meditations by physical sensations such as tired or itchy legs, for example, Kornfeld says that instead of ignoring it, we should “feel that quite carefully, let that energy of the body open in your attention. See if you can be aware of the sensation in a peaceful or a kind way.” Often these sensations dissolve and e!
vaporate in our consciousness once we stop running from them or trying to distance ourselves.

Varieties of teachings and four short meditation exercises take up the second disc, teaching us how to move into a Buddhist perspective: “The Buddha said at one point that all the teachings of the dharma have only one purpose, the sure heart’s release, the opening of the heart. This is the purpose of the dharma and nothing else.” Keeping it simple, Kornfeld focuses on this concept: When the heart is open, everything falls into place much easier. Letting go can be as scary as dropping backward over a cliff with your eyes closed, but once you’re able to let go, you float in the arms of the interconnected universal fabric.

Many of the approaches mentioned on “Meditation for Beginners” might be obvious, but unless you hear them spoken while deep in a receptive state, they can be hard to bring into life, such as the idea that “the cause of our suffering is our fighting and struggling with what is.” With Kornfeld’s help you can stop struggling with what you cannot change, following your breath with the calm detachment of listening to a breeze through the trees: “feel the movement of the breath like a breeze; it breathes itself; your whole being is in change like a river, your breath shows you that river, that movement of impermanence.” Guiding us to this place of stillness and impermanence, Kornfeld shows a calm mastery and deep understanding of what’s going on in the beginning meditation practitioner’s mind from moment to moment. He makes “Meditation for Beginners” an essential starting place for what cannot help but become the journey of a lifetime, and perhaps longer.

To listen to this CD, click:
http://au.dailycd.com/au/m/med4beg/med4beg.m3u

To buy this CD, click:
http://www.dailycd.com/cgi-bin/display/buylink.cgi?aid=25144

This is the text version
To see it with graphics, click:
http://www.dailyom.com/articles/3/2010/25144.html

September 6, 2010
Motion
Hilario Duran Trio
2010

Cuban pianist and arranger Hilario Duran is one of those people whose name should be mentioned in the same breath as other important contemporary Cuban musicians. His 2007 release, From the Heart, was a Latin Jazz big band sensation and garnered him both a Grammy nomination and a Juno Award in the Contemporary Jazz Album category. Close to the day he was granted Canadian citizenship, Duran received the second of his three Juno awards. Outside of Canada Duran was awarded the Chico O’Farrill Lifetime Achievement award in Miami, a state ideal for properly lauding a Latin artist.

Like many great artists, Duran is fully aware that collaboration can only enhance his sound. Aptly enough, he selected two excellent Canadian musicians to comprise his trio, bassist Roberto Occhipinti and drummer Mark Kelso. Three years after an incredibly successful 2007 release, the trio is back with “Motion”, a refined delight. Though the flair of Cuba and flavor of Latin music is present in the album, the spice is executed with a gentle hand for an album that will please many a taste, from jazz fans to true world music lovers. The album begins with “It’s Only Seven,” a song that hints at the luxurious stretch of evening merriment ahead as much in the title as in the easygoing flow of the music for a rhythm that easily twirls around faster tempos while never going a step faster than necessary.

The gorgeous and seductive “Tango Moruno” boasts a decidedly Cuban flavor, and the three musicians play with a certain sense of amusement and ease that is less present in the Argentine tango. Gentle percussion and coy pianos help maintain just the right amount of mystery for a tune that still boasts seduction. The title track allows Duran the chance to flex his fingers as they fly expertly over the keys, creating a beautifully syncopated number that seems to flirt with different time signatures and tempos but somehow maintains a surprisingly perfect sense of consistency that just might inspire a little motion from the listener.

To listen to this CD, click:
http://au.dailycd.com/au/h/hilario/hilario.m3u

To buy this CD, click:
http://www.dailycd.com/cgi-bin/display/buylink.cgi?aid=25143

This is the text version
To see it with graphics, click:
http://www.dailyom.com/articles/3/2010/25143.html

September 3, 2010
Hurricane
Grace Jones
2008

“This is my voice, my weapon of choice,” intones Grace Jones in a Jamaican patois, kicking off “Hurricane”. It’s a disarming, aggressive sentiment from Jones, especially as it’s the first lyric we’ve heard from her in 19 years. But “Hurricane” is definitely an aggressive record. Danceable and catchy, yes, but also textured with dark electronic hues and forceful, opinionated, and often autobiographical lyrics. And then there’s Jones’ voice. Always soul-drenched and powerful, the years have burnished her contralto into an instrument of blackened grace, capable of both uplift and menace. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, Grace Jones was an icon of visual flair, as famous for her imposing figure and androgynous looks as her huge club hits. On “Hurricane”, Jones infuses dance music with the inimitable style she’s long cultivated. Two decades after we last heard from her, Jones remains a force of nature.

Much of “Hurricane” creeps ominously through unlit alleys and underground clubs. A song like the anti-label “Corporate Cannibal” is all tension and atmospheric dread, its undulating bassline and droning background vocals setting the stage for Jones’s fearsome vocalizing. “I deal in the market,” she oozes in a seductive speak-sung voice, part seductress, part boogeywoman. “Every man, woman, and child is the target / A closet full of faceless names / Pay more for less emptiness.” A similarly dank atmosphere fills the down-tempo title track (a dubbed-out collaboration with trip-hop pioneer Tricky), but this time the clanking beats and synth drones fuel a fire of empowerment: “I am woman, I am son / I can give birth to a sheep, I can give birth to son / And I can be cool, soft like the breeze / I’ll be a hurricane, ripping up trees!” The grit and confidence in Jones’ voice uproots everything in its path.

“Hurricane” moves from strength to strength, trafficking in steely confidence the entire way through. That’s not to say that Jones is afraid to show her vulnerability—to the contrary. In the Wendy and Lisa collaboration “Williams Blood,” Jones admits that she’s more like her womanizing, hard-drinking musician grandfather on her mom’s side than the proper religious folk on her dad’s side. It’s painful to hear her mom tell her, “When are you gonna be a Jones? You’re just like your dad, / God bless his soul,” but Jones doesn’t shy away from confrontation, even when she’s confronting herself. Guitars, strings, and gospel singers proclaim, “I’ve got the William’s blood in me,” in the song’s most climactic moment. It’s simultaneously a cry of resignation and a stoic affirmation of Jones’s free will. And somehow it’s supremely funky. “Hurricane” embodies all the contradictions that make Grace Jones who she is.

To listen to this CD, click:
http://au.dailycd.com/au/h/hurricane/hurricane.m3u

To buy this CD, click:
http://www.dailycd.com/cgi-bin/display/buylink.cgi?aid=25030

This is the text version
To see it with graphics, click:
http://www.dailyom.com/articles/3/2010/25030.html

September 2, 2010
Medicine Woman IV
Medwyn Goodall
2009

A highly acclaimed and accomplished New Age composer, Britain’s Medwyn Goodall records alone in his isolated recording studio in Cornwall, England, yet taps into the flavors and soul of the whole world around him. Goodall’s album Medicine Woman became a platinum-selling classic, and with “Medicine Woman IV: Prophecy 2012″, Goodall returns to form with a classic of New Age beauty that carries a slightly ominous charge, signaling the unstoppable pull of the future and man’s ultimate destiny, as if that date is itself the black hole at the center of the galaxy. The ticktock chimes of the opening track, “The Time Keepers,” connect to this feeling, like an ever-opening path into the cracks of the infinite, the natural world audible through the sudden bursts of air, through hawk-cry wooden flutes and the transcendental bird-woman’s-eye-view of the eternal process of change: birth, death, growth, decay.

Physics is gradually beginning to understand what the Native American medicine women have instinctively known since the dawn of time: Time and space are forever orbiting closer and closer to an end point, and the realm beyond is closer to us than the spaces within our own molecular structure. Goodall grasps this in the music of Medicine Woman, as in “When Light Beckons,” a mix of burbling synth, tinkling chimes, angelic vocal synthesizer chords, and cycling piano lines that in the right frame of mind, and in its benevolent flow, you could let yourself dissolve in. It’s as nurturing as warm sunshine streaming through the window, and as you lie in the cool Cornwall grasses you’ll realize that wherever you are, the angelic light of healing dimensions are always right there waiting to shower you with a million loving fingers of light. Getting closer all the time, 2012 has always been there, and yet if you are going to dissolve into a million points of light, you have done so alr!
eady. So relax.

By the time we get to the end of “Medicine Woman IV: Prophecy 2012″, we’re transformed. “The Next Dimension” lifts the whole cascade of love and hope to another level, with a rising synth melody in which wordless female vocals and the echoes of percussion, whistles, flutes, and harps flow together like a gathering storm cloud of energy. The cloud gradually fades from view as it approaches the horizon line of the infinite, expanding outward, and culminating in the still-twirling mirror ball over a near-empty dance floor as the sun comes up on the best all-night party of your life.

To listen to this CD, click:
http://au.dailycd.com/au/m/medwomaniv/medwomaniv.m3u

To buy this CD, click:
http://www.dailycd.com/cgi-bin/display/buylink.cgi?aid=25029

This is the text version
To see it with graphics, click:
http://www.dailyom.com/articles/3/2010/25029.html

September 1, 2010
Karuna: Devotional Songs
Felix Maria Woschek and Sultan Khan
1997

Sultan Khan is part of a generation of Indian musicians who have strong classical backgrounds and are unafraid to incorporate them in their embracing of newer genres. Trained in the sarangi (a classical Indian stringed instrument), thanks to his musician father Ustad Gulab Khan, Khan has been performing since the age of 11; his debut concert was at the All Indian Conferences. He is the receiver of numerous awards, including the Sangeet Natya Academy Award, also known as the President’s Award. German multi-instrumentalist Felix Maria Woschek is a true world musician and has a spirituality about him that allows him to relate to devotional music of all kinds.

Rather than favoring music of a particular faith, however, Woschek opens his arms to all. With so much of its roots being in devotional music, however, the sounds of India have a particular significance to Woschek and have led him to numerous collaborations with the seemingly omnipresent Khan on Woschek’s own label. Their album “Karuna: Devotional Songs” is a beautiful work that stands as a message of peace and testimony to the unity of mankind through faith. On this collaboration, the artists blend music from various faiths and interpret them in the bhajan (devotional Indian) style. On the 25-minute introductory song “Ya Qayyam,” Khan’s skillful sarangi entwines itself with hushed, bassy vocal tones and gentle plucking for a truly entrancing and sacred experience.

The rest of the songs on the album are much shorter though no less entrancing, and they flow into one another to create a continuously relaxing experience. “Ya Qayyam” is followed by “Pukar,” which is more dreamlike and less trance-inducing. Strings and tabla dust a gentle soundscape for an effect as tranquil as the sound of dripping water while gorgeous vocals ground the listener and remind them of the elevated nature of their relaxation. The album finishes with “Hari Sharanam,” an appropriate anthem of unity, stating the message of only one god, though he is viewed and perceived in many different ways. This omnipresent being, and the knowledge of his existence, is enough to provide peace of mind and tranquility that is unparalleled. Aptly enough, the male vocals delivering this message sound at once somber and assured, and are reaffirmed by the call and response with others, the pleasant whine of the sarangi, and the echoing of bells, and resonating of tablas.

To listen to this CD, click:
http://au.dailycd.com/au/k/karunadevo/karunadevo.m3u

To buy this CD, click:
http://www.dailycd.com/cgi-bin/display/buylink.cgi?aid=25028

This is the text version
To see it with graphics, click:
http://www.dailyom.com/articles/3/2010/25028.html