Sacred Journey of Ku-Kai

Kitaro

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 9, 2003)
• Original Release Date: September 9, 2003
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Domo Records
• ASIN: B0000BWVCH
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #104,787 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

• This is item 1 in The Sacred Journey of Ku-Kai Series.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

In the face of the many tragedies of September 11, 2001, the tribulations of Kitaro don't amount to much--he got grounded in Hawaii for a few days while en route to Japan. But the unscheduled layover did give the Japanese musician a chance to ponder the state of the world and his music in it, and the results are one of his best CDs in years. Inspired by those events, Kitaro began making a pilgrimage to the island of Shikoku which has 88 temples, each with its own distinct temple bells. Kitaro has recorded those bells on his as-yet-uncompleted trek and works them into the fabric of The Sacred Journey of Ku-Kai, the first of a projected multi-CD series. Kitaro creates landscapes as meditative as any he's conceived and with more open space to allow his flutes, electric sitars, Chinese huquin (violin), pipa, and of course synthesizers to breathe. Although Kitaro occasionally hits the bombastic cadences and hyper-glycerin melodies that often mar his work, he taps into a more refined spirit on tracks like "Michi" with its Zen garden flow and the ritual space of "Gi," featuring Tibetan flutist and singer Nawang Khechog. --John Diliberto

Product Description

Sacred Journey of Ku-kai is first in a series of albums intended to address personal and global concerns alongside forward-thinking views of spiritual growth. Kitaro has embarked on a spiritual pilgrimage, visiting temples on the island of Shikoku, Japan once undertaken by Buddhist holy man, Ku-kai, more than 1,100 years ago. Sampling bells sounds from each temple, Kitaro distills their essence with inspired musical landscapes.

It is Kitaro’s intention that his message of peace through music will inspire and unify us universally in global and spiritual co-existence. "The wars of the world don’t come from outer space. People create them, people who have a war within themselves. I want to create music that eases that war within." --- Kitaro

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 88 Steps, January 3, 2005

By	Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Kitaro is something of a problematic player/composer. He is capable of extraordinarily creative work, but tends to be repetitive in between his brilliant moments. For this reason, I tend to approach each new album with a good deal of caution. For some reason, the closer he gets to his roots (Silk Road, Kojiki, etc.) the stronger his work becomes. For this reason I decided to give The Sacred Journey of Kukai a chance.

KuKai (774-835) was the founder of Shingon Buddhism in Japan, and offshoot of Vajrayana Buddhism and extremely influential in both Japan's history and spiritual life. The sacred journey consists of a pilgrimage to the Shikoku temples which were the mainstay of Shingon power. This CD offers the first 12 stages of the journey (there is a second volume already out as of this writing). The work displays Kitaro at his most original, and sometimes at his most difficult.

Kitaro makes extensive use of sampled bells in this work, often as stress points in the compositions, with some of the most important melodic components provided by the flutes of Nawang Khechog, a noted Tibetan master. The first cut, Michi is a perfect example of this kind of work - the large bells, electronic sounds, drums, and Nawang Kechog floating serenely above this. In Kageroh more electronic instruments appear (a nicely sampled koto and sitar among others) and the basic interplay of rhythm and melody with an ever present background drone that is a characteristic of the whole album establishes itself.

The cuts I like least are the one's most likely to be popular, as in Shizuku, which is a return to Kitaro's hallmark theremin style, and Flow which uses a plucked synth guitar sound. I will admit that, in this particular case the effect is a bit different, do to a more effective sonic background. But I would still like to hear Kitaro do something else with the theremin besides the 'softly falling ribbon' of sound which is his hallmark.

Nen is one of the most interesting pieces, using a chanting choirs of monks against a variety of sampled bells. The chanting builds in pressure and there is little melody to provide rest for the listener - this is both interesting, and subtly irritating. This it is with great relief that the ritual breaks and The Wind introduces its contrasting melodic forms.

I'm not going to go through the rest of the cutes, since this introduction should give you enough information to decide for yourself. I can honestly say that this is the most 'different' album that has come from Kitaro since Kojiki and worth listening. Whether the remaining 76 cuts to come continue to maintain this standard remains to be seen.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Renaissance, May 20, 2004

By A Customer

Kitaro's latest albums like "ancient" or "ancient journey" were not bad albums, but very superficiel ones which made me think that kitaro was repeating himself and that he has lost his creative talent. Then ý listened to "the sacred journey of kukai" And ý thought that the great kitaro was reborn!

In this album, there are no fast pieces as in "thinking of you" or "mandala", but all the pieces are giving rest and serenity to your soul, and make you feel good with their enchanting melodies, positive energy and with those electrfying bells from different temples.

Kitaro has proved once again that he is the master of New Age. And ý can hardly wait for the volume two of "the sacred journey of kukai"

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Inspiring Way-Station along Kitaro's Musical Pilgrimage, May 25, 2006

By	Crazy Fox (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This is a very interesting CD of fine music by Kitaro, a musician who has defined and refined the musical category of New Age music (so-called). Like on so many other of his albums, he manages to strike a fine, perilous balance between inspiring sugar-sweet spirituality and sentimentality on the one hand and moving (even haunting) intensity and depth on the other; whenever he loses his balance, he tends to lean towards the former extreme (okay, sometimes he completely plops down there), but on "Sacred Journey of Kukai, Volume 1" he maintains the balance and the creative tension it produces with great artistic integrity better than I've ever seen him do (with the possible exception of track 3, which verges on the saccharine). Another of his signature balancing acts is that between traditional Asian forms of music and contemporary Western forms (along with the instruments particular to each), and the pilgrimage theme of this CD allows him to show this off to wonderful effect. The temple bells punctuating the music and the hair-raising (in a good way, strangely) chanting of the Heart Sutra in Track 5 ("Nen") are especially distinctive and innovative as well as appropriate to the theme of the album.

And Kitaro has composed and performed this music as a prayer for the interrelated goals of inner peace and world peace. What better raison d'etre could there be for music?