Customer Reviews

A Prayer For The Soul Of Layla

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Music more beautiful than this is not to be found. This is the rare album that can reach your soul. Sharifi is a master at weaving together various world music forms into songs that will never leave your heart. Each new listen is a transcendent experience. This music carries you away to other lands and ancient times. I recommend this album to everyone I know. It is sheer, blissful beauty.

This is one of the most beautiful cds I have ever heard. It is seductive, sensual and ethereal all at the same time. One of my favorite albums, I listen to it over and over. I am saddened to see it is of limited availability.

beautiful, soul-stirring music. I have danced to this over and over again, and it's always fresh and stirring. totally suited to belly dancing

Sharifi, among other fine artists, proved that real art and music don't recognize narrow-minded chauvinism and go far beyond one culture.
In this CD, Sharifi's music shows that a true artist doesn't belong to one culture (American, Arabic, Iranian, North African or others) but that beauty in all cultures belongs to him.
That's exactly what defines a global artist and set him apart from the crowd.

Anyone with a fancy toward somewhat different Arabic music with a New Age genre touch should listen to Sharifi. He's good at this stuff.

Very stimulating and deep.

-Ahsen Abro.

Some songs are very soft and soothing making me feel I'm being whisked away on a cloud, while other songs were full of rythmic percussions that make me want to get up and dance! The Salt Road track has a very interesting melodramatic sound to it, and mixes music with sounds of Persian street vendors in a way that makes you feel like you're in some distant land emersed in a beautiful foriegn culture. I love this CD and highly recommend it!

You can almost picture yourself walking down the Salt Road in India. Common themes weave themselves throughout the tracks in different forms. "A Prayer For the Soul of Layla" is as longing and sad and soulful as it gets -- it is a true prayer from the deep in the heart. I really like this CD.

This is one of several new releases in the "trance" genre -- you know: world beat meets new age.

In Sharifi's debut (?), gentle synthesizer streams wash over groovy Middle-Eastern rythmns, while a series of vocalists -- ranginging from Moroccan Hassan Hakmoun to (surprise!) American Paula Cole -- sing soaring wordless melodies. Hakmoun brings his throbbing sintir to the tracks he appears on, and that adds a welcome edge.

When in a mellow mood, you'll enjoy these even twelve tracks, though I doubt the CD will hold up to repeated listening.

I suspect that Sharifi will be back with a more daring and interesting second release. Like Jai Uttal, who blends East-West melodies and rythms and has -- over the space of his 4 releases -- moved away from synths to real instruments, Sharifi has an interesting approach. Let's hope he makes a parallel journey.

the drumming on this cd is fantastic -- complex interesting rhythms

the music is wild, from upbeat to textured curving ambient drones

the Persian style vocals are of course beautiful & very moving

I don't know about how "spiritual" this music is, in the sense that Vas is spiritual in, but it's great music nonetheless

THESE PRAYERS, IN THE FORM OF NOTES, TAKE ONE'S SOUL TO THE POINT WHERE PURE MUSIC, PURE SECLUSION AND PURE PEACE IS...NOT ONLY ADDRESSES TO THE SOUL OF LAYLA, BUT TO ALL MANKIND'S, EMBRACING UNIVERSALITY...