Customer Reviews

Coming Home

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Coming Home is Yungchen Lhamo's third album. The first was only available in Australia and having heard it I can tell you it was much better than the re-recorded effort by RealWorld. Coming Home is Yungchen Lhamo's best album. At first I thought she might have just been an exotic voice from a mystic country but this album shows that not only does she have a unique and overwhelmingly beautiful voice but that she is a highly talented songwriter as well. I have seen her in concert where she sings acappella, so it is a shock at first to hear her with full musical accompianment but she has been able to blend her voice and her songs with a fine touch to some great western sounds. Really, this is the meaning of world music, a talented singer songwriter marrying her traditional roots with worldwide elements.

Yungchen Lhamo is exquisite. A miraculous voice of such expression that words do not convey the beauty of it. This album has gorgeous songs on it, without doubt. I give it only four stars due to the heavy popflavored tacky production and accompaniment. Why could we have not had someone senstive to the acoustic possibilities of this marvelous voice and esthetic arrange this album. It has ruined most of the songs for me. Too heavy, too western, too slanted toward making a buck at the expense of this natural wondrous woman.

This is a cd that won't disappoint anyone that loves a good voice (phenomenal voice), deeply moving music, and, a very good technical recording to enhance the whole experience. Being Tibetan, Yungchen Llamo will shock new listeners with a crystal clear, spiritually powerful voice that is uncommon in western music. It is music worth owning.

I was absolutely thrilled to see that Real World artist Yungchen Lhamo had recorded another CD, Coming Home. I love her first, Tibet, Tibet, which contains mellifluous Tibetan chants sung a capella.CH follows another path in Yungchen's musical road by incorporating different musical nuances from techno-ish to jazz to tradition European classical music- it all works so well for her as her voice is truly the most magical instrument she could ever utilise.Be sure to read the liner notes in which she discusses her past- I was especially touched to learn about the poverty she experienced as a child in Tibet (Defiance). She provides insight into each of the tracks which personalises not only her plight but the plight of the Tibetan people in general.I feel fortunate to be among those in the world with whom Yungchen is sharing the gift of her voice.

As an appreciative fan of Yungchen Lhamo's first release; Tibet, Tibet; I was quite lucky to be shopping online the first day of this, her second CD, release. If you are familiar with and like her first work you will probably enjoy this one also. As she explains in the liner notes, Yungchen Lhamo's first love is a cappela performance but studio recording allows experimentation and exploration. In this new CD, part of that experimentation is the use of more Western sounds. This CD does not have the almost stark bareness of the first. There is much more layering and much more instrumentation. At times some of the work is very much like the early Ambiennt work of Eno, at times almost like his Roxy Music days. There is some very "New Age" sounding material and some straight up Jazz guitar. There is also a lot of drumming. Personally, I think the experiment worked. Two ears up!

Yungchen Lhamo is worth 5 stars anytime. Unfortunately, I can only imagine how it would be if she were backed up by equally talented production. Or, I won't need to imagine - listening to Dorje-Den from "Tibet Tibet" gives a very good idea.

Unfortunately this incredible singer caught the eye of some new-ageish producer, who applied a standard formula to westernize music they judge too exotic to the $ holding westeners. I can almost see a major gym-chain yoga class realaxing to this album, that's how bad this lifeless and sterile production is.

As I listened to this CD, I came to think of the portable cassetterecorders of the 80's, with karaoke mode, so you could tune down the vocals. I found myself hoping the have the reverse, where I could tune down the elevatormusic playing on the background so that I could instead focus on some of the finest singing this planet has produced.

Peter Gabriel's Real World enterprise has thrown up some marvels to world audiences.Yungchen Lhamo is a voice the world needs and may easily have been denied: and the biographical data is carried in the songs of'Coming Home', a quietly moving document. In this instance, the expatriate's loss of a home, is our gain. I'm reminded of Reen Kelani's awesomely poignant,'Sprinting Gazelle' for these reasons. This is simpler musical fare, but none the less effective. Lhamo has written historically, peronally and of her buddhist spiritual life. The Tuvan throat lads guest with complementary sweetness given their approximation to Tibetan temple chanting. The Real World maestros have stood back to allow Lhamos the spotlight:a bit of Gabriellesque droning, but thankfully light on his operatic flourishes.

Sounds more Chinese than Tibetan, and too polished, amateur Enya. I like Choying Drolma much more; she feels more sincere.