Kali Ma: Dances of Transformation
Recorded By
Desert Wind

Overall Rating: (on a scale of 1 to 5 stars)

If you've ever seen someone dancing to New Age music with an underlying Middle Eastern rhythm, it's likely that person was using music by Desert Wind. This band has produced several CD's, and Kali Ma is the one that I find best suited to performing Oriental dance. Although a couple of the songs in this collection are traditional Middle Eastern songs (Habena and Mastom), most of them are original compositions by Alan Bachman based on underlying rhythms such as chiftetelli, maqsoum, and karsilama.

What I Liked:

• I very much liked the New Age style of musical arrangements to the familiar Middle Eastern songs Habena and Mastom. I would love to hear Desert Wind do a complete CD consisting of Alan's arrangements of such traditional songs.
• It's nice alternative music for dancers who would like a change of pace from traditional Middle Eastern songs.
• The CD liner notes include the lyrics to the three songs that have vocals.
• I very much enjoyed several of the original compositions that appeared on this collection, particularly Isis, Wind Dancer, and Scorpio Rising.
• The songs employ a variety of rhythms and tempos.
• There are enough songs to choose from to put together a complete professional performance.
• I find the music suitable both for listening to in the car while commuting and also for performing Middle Eastern dance.
• Many of the songs are played at slow or medium speeds with easy-to-hear drumming, making them suitable for classroom use when teaching finger cymbals.

What I Didn't Like:

• Some of the songs run a bit long, which makes them unsuitable for certain uses. Beginning solo dancers really shouldn't use songs longer than about 3 or 3 1/2 minutes, and I avoid using songs longer then 3 1/2 minutes when I create choreography because it's so much for class members to memorize.
• Although the goddess-oriented songs are pretty, I would hesitate to use them for performances before the general public, especially in a community with a heavily fundamentalist population, because the lyrics might be offensive to audience members who are highly committed to patriarchal religions such as Islam or Christianity.

This collection consists of music arranged by Alan Bachman into a New Age style. Two of the songs are traditional ones from the Middle East (Habena and Mastom), but most of them are original compositions by Alan. There is a very definite modern-day synthesizer and electronic keyboard sound, although a couple of acoustic instruments (flute and drums) are also used.

Occasionally, I'll see a message posted on the Internet communities asking whether anyone can help identify the song title and artist for a New Age style of song that they heard another dancer use in a show. Almost always, the descriptions in these inquiries make me certain that the person is referring to music by Desert Wind.

You will probably like this collection if:

• You enjoy New Age music.
• You're looking for songs that aren't too fast that you can use for practicing dance moves or finger cymbal rhythms.
• You want to dance to alternative music instead of to traditional Middle Eastern songs.
• You're a Pagan with an interest in music that celebrates Goddess. The vocals on this collection would probably appeal to you.

You probably won't care for this music if:

• You don't care for synthesizers.
• You prefer to use music played on traditional acoustic instruments such as oud, kanoun, rebaba, or ney.
• You're happiest using music with a very ethnic sound.
• You're a member of a fundamentalist church/mosque/synagogue for a patriarchal religion and you would be offended by music with lyrics that celebrate a Goddess.

Most of the songs pick a particular Middle Eastern rhythm and then stick with it throughout. However, a couple of them are more complex with some rhythm changes and breaks that wouldn't be good choices for beginning dancers.

Several of the songs are fairly long. These could be good for practicing finger cymbals or dance moves either in the classroom or at home, but I wouldn't recommend that beginners use anything longer than 3 or 3 1/2 minutes for performance because it's hard for a beginner to keep a dance interesting for much longer than that. I also wouldn't recommend creating choreography to anything longer than 3 1/2 minutes because longer songs are too much for many people to memorize all at once.

For the benefit of people who may be searching the web in hopes of locating one of the songs with vocals that appear on this collection, here are some of the lyrics:

• Kali Ma. A chant repeating the name "Kali Ma" over and over again.
• Rhea Kronia. "Rhea Kronia, Mother of Time, Goddess of Winter - transform divine, Clearer of old life - consumer of fall, Preparer for new life, her love is for all, Rhea Kronia."
• Into The Night. "Bless the night, Our pure light, Guides the way, Our new day."
• Moon Goddess. "Goddess of moonlight, Dancer of our night, Giver of all life, Blessed be."

Song Title

Length

Nationality

RealAudio Clip?

Translation?

Comments

Desert Wind
P.O. Box 3722
Salt Lake City, UT 84110-3722
U.S.A.

Phone: (801) 274-8818
Fax: (801) 278-3141
Web Site: www.desertwindmusic.com
E-Mail: info@desertwindmusic.com

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