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Mickey Hart is a rhythm proselytizer. He's been sounding-off from the percussion pulpit since writing his first book,
Drumming at the Edge of Magic in 1990. Hart's
Planet Drum--the book and the album--set forth an army of percussion acolytes. With
Spirit into Sound, Hart has another accompanying
book and a gentler music that looks toward the melodic side of percussion. Although there are a few guests, including tabla player Zakir Hussain,
Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir, and sarangi master Ustad Sultan Khan, it's Mickey Hart and vocalist/percussionist Rebeca Mauleon who dominate the album. They play melodic percussion instruments and/or electronic samples of African balafon, Brazilian berimbau, and steel drums. For a drummer as worldly as Hart,
Spirit into Sound is surprisingly naïve in its childlike rhythms. Mauleon's wordless chants make
Spirit into Sound sound like a global glossolalia nursery rhyme. This isn't an album for the rhythmatists of Hart's core following, but a more intimate affair.
--John Diliberto