Admittedly, there are still personal prejudices to be overcome when it comes to New Age. And this compilation with a selection from the extensive oeuvre of the dancer and shamanist Gabrielle Roth and her »band« The Mirrors does not necessarily make it easy for sceptics to get started. In the first piece, »Night Whisper«, didgeridoo sounds of all things form the foundation. Patience pays off, though, even if the didgeridoo comes back later. For Gabrielle Roth was not just some esoteric weirdo, but an influential movement meditation teacher whose 5Rhythms approach is now practised around the world, and with Gabrielle Roth & The Mirrors she not only recorded around 20 trance dance records, which apparently also sold very well, but had highly inclined guest musicians who played together with illustrious names such as Pharoah Sanders, Miles Davis, Sun Ra, or Milton Nascimento. Interestingly, according to her producer and husband Robert Ansell, Gabrielle Roth was not a musician herself, but the »leader« of the whole thing. Ansell, originally a lawyer, contributed drums, and together they chose the other musicians. Tribalistic is only one level of this virtual ethno-music concept. Cerebral funk is just as much a part of it, as can be heard in the bass in »Seducing Hades«. In general, the music likes to push you towards the fact that it is conceived around dance movements. Sometimes it doesn’t sound that completely different from what Bill Laswell, for example, did in 1988 on »Hear No Evil«. Which should not be a disadvantage for either side.
Claire Rousay
The Bloody Lady
Viernulvier