Customer Reviews

Parallel Universe

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just love this CD....I'm in a sad place now and it smoothed me and made me feel better.I'm telling all my friends about this CD.

What I love about this CD is that it is great on all levels. The music and production are fabulous, with exotic instrumentation. The vocals are beautiful, they have great tone and depth and the words are meaningful. The notes and melodies are interesting to listen to. Overall the whole CD is passionate and uplifting.

Sparkis' cd is a rare combination of original material using contemporary musical references as well as folk sources. Sparkis combines her diverse influences and sources seamlessly. Highly recommended!

... At your reach...
Nijole's voice and Lyrics defy category, they send us on a musical ride yet unparalleled! It's a virtual cave where the ethnic meets the electric, where time-space line fades... where all is yet forming before it materializes in the Universe on a Time and Space line. Find out for yourself.

Finally there is an aural equivalent of the film "What the Bleep"! If you want to "Create Your Day" (ala Dr. Joe Despenza, the most often referenced interview of the film) by consciously deciding to live it, then this CD is for you. The music is Alternative with a World flavor, musically evocative, blissful and haunting in its lush harmonies. Music is far more entrenching in the subconscious and elevating to the beleaguered soul than reading can be. I listen to it in the morning and the songs keep coming back to me all day long. Not since Bjork have the spiritual sensibilities of these lyrics inspired me more.

Combine fluid exotic music, inspirational words and a self-reflective honesty and this is what many of us have been waiting for! I hardily recommend it to the those who have a spiritual practice of any kind and to work it into your week!

What a beautiful, dreamy, exotic, album!
I think I've been waiting a long time to hear this music!
I knew I was going to like it from the first amazing guitar riff
- a cross between Chris Isaac and something Middle Eastern like what Jimmy Page would come up with, set against a backdrop of poignant silence. And then you hear Nijole's voice almost whispering -- You rarely hear a voice so soothing and sensuous, but so expressive - her voice is audibly painting a picture with its subtle shades of emotional expression -- and then the music suddenly sweeps up and out into a lavish chorus of siren
song! And then she transports you to some ancient ancestral place when she suddenly goes Lithuanian on ya...! Good stuff... sent shivers down my back. And the girl's got a range, too - check out the unbelievably high notes in "Rise" - I couldn't tell if it was the flute until I heard it playing alongside her vocal,
except much LOWER!

So I thought, of course the first song is good, the second song is good... but I'm sure all the weak songs are going to be towards the end. Not so!! Every song is wonderful.
Each song is different from each the other - one more pop, one more ethnic, one almost jazzy and the last one is almost classical, though this one is the most unique to me - truly Nijole found a completely unique voice in "Evening Prayer".
But somehow no matter how different each song is from the other, the whole album is held together with Nijole's own unique style. She is continuing the Peter Gabriel tradition -- writing pop songs with a different vocabulary, borrowing from exotic influences but still unmistakably pop (or "art pop", as some like to call it). Great melodies that stick with you -- I'm constantly singing a different song in my head. And the words are speaking to our emotional experiences, as well as offering a positive philosophy. She has a unique insight into our psychology...perhaps into her own soul?

And certainly Nijole has found an equally worthy partner in Fritz Heede who did the production -- very lush, very exotic, walking the fine line between ethereal, airy and otherworldly on the one hand, until he brings you crashing down to earth with some wild guitar riff or pulsing ethnic percussion, carving out a style all his own. Each song is like a dramatic piece with a perfectly meshed musical score underlying the meaning - each like a little movie... The musicians on the album are all
very top-notch - always fresh, always creative, nothing clichéd in any of the musical prases or arrangements, which is certainly welcome in today's musical
environment! All in all, I can't help loving this album,
I really look forward to my drive now, knowing that it's going to be really special