Unusual Album Title

Well, dear friends, I'm back after a couple of weeks. Jimmy Bear kindly posted a message to tell everyone that my sweet mother passed away last week. I will miss her terribly, but she is free from the suffering that had been so much a part of her life lately. I am back to work today, feeling not quite ready for the daily tasks, but I'm giving it a shot. I will probably write more about my mother in the coming days. I found this review of Sheila Chandra's album on Daily OM Music and thought I would share.Also, here are a couple of websites with more information and some music samples. Check out "Speaking in Tongues" at Amazon.http://www.sheilachandra.com/http://www.amazon.com/Weaving-Ancestors-Voices-Sheila-Chandra/dp/B000000HOKMarch 26, 2007ABoneCroneDroneSheila Chandra 1996"British-Indian singer Shelia Chandra has released albums in an array of popular styles, but ABoneCroneDrone finds her taking a sharp detour into deep space, exploring-as the title might suggest-the drones and moans of ambient. The title evokes ancient medicine women cooking magical mixtures in big iron pots on mountain sides. These extended atonal compositions revolve around a single droning chord, one that ever shifts and shudders as it vibrates through the track, while Chandra vocalizes slowly and methodically around it. A powerful and intriguing vocal presence, Chandra merges her spirit with the unworldly ambient chords to act as a conduit between the listener's ears and the eternal now, as if one is stuck in the opening note of a symphony that is in itself a symphony.The opener, "ABoneCroneDrone1" rests on a single extended droning note, a rope of a vocal tone extended forward into a slowly swirling tunnel of light. Chandra then harmonizes up, down, and around, but never in a manic, dervish manner. "ABoneCroneDrone4" explores similarly haunting terrain, as Chandra sings wordlessly through echo filters, weaving wide choruses out of herself via slowly raising and lowering pitch while the echo keeps the different notes reverberating. The pulsing Indian drone operates as the Kundalini backbone of the track. Each "BoneCroneDrone" features ambient droning over which Chandra vocalizes wordlessly. At first these may seem similar, but listened to more closely there turns out to be no similarities at all; shapes and sounds shift relentlessly. The closer you listen, the more complex they become, fractallike. By "ABoneCroneDrone6," things seem to have clicked even deeper into place, with Chandra's vocals now digging deeper down the chakras than before, and the gentle crash of surf suddenly appearing in the aural distance. Emitting low, chantlike waves, Chandra's voice becomes-and it was like this through the whole album we now realize-a fundamental part of our own spirit as listeners. Her voice and our nervous system have melded completely, and with complete surrender comes complete awakening. If a massage could happen from the inside of the body out, that masseuse would be the voice of Sheila Chandra. "