Byron Metcalf, Mark Seelig, Steve Roach - Nada Terma

NADA TERMA merges the boundaries of ambient, world music and sacred-meditative styles. On NADA TERMA (translated as "discovering spiritual treasures through the world of sound") East Indian tonalities blend with Sufi-like trance percussion immersed in atmospheres, drifts and drones, arriving at a state of relaxed, focused awareness. The continuously-woven 73-minute piece is sequenced into seven discrete segments, perfect for any listener looking for extended states of awareness, creative enhancement, yoga, bodywork, and deep listening. Following upon the groundbreaking work of 2006's MANTRAM, NADA TERMA is the second Projekt collaboration between Arizona's Steve Roach and Byron Metcalf with Germany's Mark Seelig. On NADA TERMA they reach deeper into the mystical / spiritual realm, presenting a blend of diverse worlds skillfully combined in an organic fashion. Deep-trance frame drums, clay pots and percussion meet with harmonic overtone vocals (akin to Tuvan throat singers) and the yearning sounds of the stringed Indian Dilruba, and East Indian bansuri flute, bringing a melodic and spiritual-contemplative highlight to the release. All of this exists within an enigmatic world of shadow and shifting light developed by way of artful enhancements and processing of the acoustic instruments. These complements are part of a constant, slowly breathing subtext of drones and atmospheres in which the entire experience lives.

A fine musical shower mutes in a strange tribal droning on the opening of NADA TERMA. The second musical project of Arizonians Steve Roach and Byron Metcalf, with German Mark Seelig, is a long introspective musical journey. A hypnotic journey, where Roach's drones are smothered among Seelig's ancestral aboriginal instruments. The first three movements are of a peace of mind from a fanciful desert to sonorous sound incantations which blow as the warm winds of Arizona aridities as any terrestrial deserts. A musical fluid which floods our internal creativity and made us travel, on camelback, towards the spiritual dunes of a whimsical desert. A soft atonal but musical movement livens up with Metcalf's beautiful percussion on the fourth part, which modify the spiritual idleness towards a more dandling movement. Captivating, the rhythm sets ablaze the musical fluidity which grows rich on Dilruba strings and Roach's threatening droning. Slowly, the movement embraces a strange lascivious dance by which the cadence increases appreciably under Roach's ceaseless reverberations. Resonances which give way to fluty breaths at the sixth part opens, returning NADA TERMA to territories even more subjecting where flutes and percussion takes on a hypnotic incantatory harmony. The movement becomes heavier and percussion more incisive, cutting with the cyclic curvatures of the reverberations. The seventh part pursues these exotic dances of the senses where Roach's drones blow as desert winds rob the mountain of relief, returning NADA TERMA's conclusion to its point of origin. NADA TERMA is beautiful music for those who like travelling with their dreams. Wandering without moving to the quest of a spiritual introspection, appropriate for its own perception. Excellent music for meditating, although from part four the rhythm is more animated. This by no means prevents the search for its Mantra, for those who believe in it.

I thoroughly enjoyed Roach & Metcalf on their collaborations THE SERPENT'S LAIR and MANTRAM, so I was really looking forward to their latest, NADA TERMA, and it does not disappoint. Low drones and something like eerie sitar music lend an otherworldly feel to the first of seven parts that play as one continuous piece of music. World and ambient music are fused together harmoniously as wood flutes, clay pots, overtone vocals, and of course Steve's various treatments combine into a unified whole. The album is similar to MANTRAM in that it goes very deep, practically demanding the listener reach a different plane of consciousness. Each track is called an excerpt rather than a part, further emphasizing the intended continuous listening experience. Until tribal drums arrive in the fourth passage, the music evolves incredibly slowly, but once change comes it comes boldly, the drums bleating insistently and continuing into part five, which becomes more intense and dramatic. Things calm a bit in the sixth excerpt as flutes return, and further still on the 17-minute closing section which makes for a soothing relaxing finish.
Tracklist:
01.Part 1 (6:01)
02.Part 2 (11:32)
03.Part 3 (4:49)
04.Part 4 (5:12)
05.Part 5 (16:31)
06.Part 6 (12:16)
07.Part 7 (17:07)


Click Here to Download Part - 1

Click Here to Download Part - 2