Customer Reviews

Hearing Solar Winds

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have several of David Hykes' recordings, but if I could only keep one, this would be it. Hykes is a composer fascinated by the deep connection between music and human spirituality. He's also a pioneer in bringing certain extended vocal techniques to western music. The amazing sounds on this excellent recording are all produced by the human voice, and Hykes' compositions bring these sounds together into a coherent and engaging whole. Highly recommended.

Beginning in 1975 David Hykes developed his chant of wordless multiple tones with a small choir of friends and peaked with this recording in 1982. No other Hykes recording since touches the purity and structural soundness of this one, which, though nothing like it existed before, sounds like a tradition already centuries old. Though inspired by the central Asian overtone or diphonic cultures none of them sound like this. One to seven voices carve ringing echoes in a 12th century French abbey, so complex in there interaction that other composite images appear high above them at times like holy apparitions. This group use only their voices and the immense space of a stone cathedral, to make a moving, one-of-a-kind passage through soul time. Hykes' solos find the heart like a sapphire laser and illuminate it into surrender, peace. Deep, cavernous, sometimes perilous, at others sublimely beautiful beyond lingual reckoning, this is without doubt their single greatest contribution to the choral arts. The CD version includes the complete sessions which were edited for the Radio France vinyl original, adding nearly 8 minutes. A fantastic acoustic document and essential find for seekers of sonic medicine.

You'll never hear anything like this CD anywhere. Hykes and his group have constructed amazing pieces of music based on the natural overtone sound of the human voice and by necessity, in order to hear the overtones, they sing very long vowel sounds, controlling the harmonics by mouth shape, tongue position, diaphragm control, etc. This CD was recorded in a cathedral which amplifies the overtones and doubles the sound of each voice. The effect--particularly on the track "Arc Descents"--is hair-raising and wonderful. I still can't figure out how their voices are able to descend in sliding tones for a full five minutes!

I saw the Harmonic Choir perform once at the Kitchen in New York. Their singing was beamed by satellite to the abbey in France where they recorded this CD, and sent back (with a slight lag), giving them the acoustics of a space 3000 miles away! It was quite amazing.

When I first heard this truly beautiful music and asked the person playing it what instrument was being used I was stunned when I was told it was simply human voices. This enchanting CD demonstrates the true beauty and wonder of the human voice.

This album is a treasure. I have never heard anything quite like it (medeival Gregorian chants have the same reverential tone but nowhere near the astonishing harmonics). Light a candle or two in the darkness and open your mind to this surreal aural experience.

This CD (in addition to their CD entitled 'Harmonic Meetings', which included some instrumentation) is certainly one of my all time favorites, especially for altering one's consciousness, inducing a state of meditation or restfulness. David Hykes & the Harmonic Choir brings the human voice to its mysterious depths. The only thing (that I know of) with which this vocal style might compare is classical Tuvan or Tibetan singing. Also, there are also some slight similarities to the vocalizations of composer György Ligeti's "Lux Aeterna"/"Eternal Light" (see film soundtrack to '2001: A Space Odyssey'). I can't imagine any serious lover of music, human voice, or meditation from cherishing this very special CD by David Hykes & the Harmonic Choir.

To this very day I find it difficult to explain what this music does in terms of shifting my consciousness. David Hykes' resonant chanting shifts one's cognitive system into virtual silence that allows one's awareness to move smoothly and progressively toward the sublime indescribable states that correspond to the purest intent.

I put this CD on softly, turn down the lights, get comfortable, and just be. This is a fantastic CD for simply getting back inside to the Real you, after being "out there". I am so grateful that I found it.

Light a candle in the dark and open your mind to this surreal, otherworldly music. Astonishing harmonics inspire a deep sense of reverential awe. The gentle souls who created this music - using their voices only - have brought us a gift from across the divide, over mist shrouded mountains, from an undiscovered country. The soul cries in recognition of such beauty.

I'm afraid to listen to this too long for fear of depression. it's like listening to Gorecki for too long, or Part. The voices do shimmer and glisten, it's more accessible than some of Ligeti's choral works. It's good to have.