Customer Reviews

Tribal Fires: Contemporary Native American Music

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Osiyo! Tired of that same old, new age "pow-wow the indian boy" type of native american flute music - what I call "Indian Light"? Tribal Fires is Electric with the power of contemporary Native American artists from many traditions, and moves you from one energizing piece to another. You can feel the air move through your eagle feathers as you soar through mountain passes with the heartbeat of the Mother's drum in your ears, only to find yourself stirring the smog between skyscrapers where taxi horns intermingle with ancient chants. Music which honors our ancestors, our nation and our power... this recording will have you bouncing in front of your computer, even late into the afternoon!

This is a collection of previously published songs. Some of it is the typical New Agey sacarin from the likes of Walela and Shenandoah. Pee-yoo. Some of it is truly marvelous. Lunar Drive is incredible, awesome, magnificent. I'd never heard of them and now I'm searching for anything else they've written. I feel so lucky to have found Joy Harjo - her work is touching, transcendant, traditional, and deeply meaningful. Songcatchers blew me away. The song by Robert Mirabal is a disappointment - get Indians Indians and hear his best.

Excellent, authentic, beautiful Tribal Waters and Voices are fantastic also, the others in the series are not near as good

This is one in a series of CDs concentrating on Native American Music with a modern bent. The diversity of the music and the addition of modern arrangements and instrucmentation removes the music from the 'authentic' sound of Native American music but makes the selection more availale to those with limited exposure to this type of music. I would suggest that an individual listen to samples of these CDs as many of the selections on the sets are duplicates of each other. Listening to the selections will give a much richer interpretation of the diversity and quality of Native American music

Most compilations or samplers like this one tend to be spotty at best, with a few good tracks surrounded by a lot of mediocre music. Not so with "Tribal Fires" - every single song is outstanding in its own right, and they actually function together quite well, making this seem like an actual album rather than a collection. Despite the range of styles represented and emotions conveyed here, there is not a downbeat or depressing track on the entire CD. It also offers a good introduction to contemporary Native American music. My personal favorites are the pieces by Jerry Alfred ("Pelly Song"), Joy Harjo ("My House is the Red Earth"), Quiltman ("Crazy Horse") and the Songcatchers ("Neon Sky"). Nevertheless, the entire CD is truly remarkable, I highly recommend it.