AMG Review of Essential Kitaro

Thom Jurek
All Music Guide

Kitaro has always been an album-oriented artist. Even his now-fabled Silk Road series took two albums to complete. Therefore one might assume that there would be real problems with this set, a single-disc "best-of" with an accompanying DVD. There's not. The sequencing and editing of these pieces to fit this format were done with great care and precision, offering the listener a complete Kitaro sound experience. The CD clocks in at nearly 75 minutes and contains 17 cuts. The DVD has five videos, of "Silk Road," "Dance of Sarasvati," "Estella," "Kori," and "Mercury," that fill it out nicely. [Domo issued a 12-track, CD-only edition of the album in 2007.]