NEW RELEASE CDs in 2022.
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About Reconciliation: We recorded this CD at home in the mid-nineties. Each song attempts to say something about the teacher and/or the teaching they founded or continue. As with most of my work harmony and melody are paramount. And each lyric is a small encapsulation of the depth of meaning I take from the teachings as I have understood them. I can call this CD my spiritual statement.
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About Cave Songs: "Cave Songs" itself is a sequence of poems and chants depicting in sound a life developing from pre-consciousness to enlightenment. The other tracks are songs built sometimes on a poem and sometimes a chant. They feature rich and panoramic harmonies and subtle and poetic lyric structures. I can call this my artistic statement perhaps.
About Traffic in Gold: the only place I seem to have found a cultural connection is with Celtic mouth music. I have ancestors from Dundee plus my childhood chore of "going round the sheep" i.e., walking the farm perimeter looking for any sheep stuck in hedges or swamps, may have something to do with it. As a child I loved fast moving melodies with lots of jumpy intervals. I still do. Perhaps Mary McCrae (see the mouth music page) is another ancestor. The track entitled "Horo Haradel" may be one of hers although the baroque arrangement is entirely my own. I think this CD might be called my cultural statement.
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About Light As: Peter Neumegan is the brother of a dear-departed friend of mine, Arif Usmani. Peter is a stalwart of the NZ folk music scene. He usually plays his many tunes on his own in festivals and clubs. He decided he'd like to have lyrics and turn them into singable songs so he contacted me. I wrote these lyrics and we subsequently recorded them with Neil Hannan at his SDL studios. I have had little to do with folk music during my life but I seemed to fit in well enough with this collection. Writing lyrics to existing tunes is truly enjoyable and can be quite challenging.
Summer with You