THE BINDI SOCIETY
The Bindi Society is a magical combo of classically-tinged groove harp, world percussion, eastern-influenced vocals, Indian harmonium, pipes & flute. The Bindi's first CD 'Falling into Light' will be released in Fall/Winter 2011. The Bindis are Barbara Imhoff on Harp, Tina Blaine aka 'Bean' - percussion/marimba, santur and vocals, and yours truly - vocals, harmonium. Recorded and engineered by Alex Stahl of Pixar, guest musicians include Alex on electric cello-bass and Stephen Schultz on flute & bagpipes.
A 2011 Double-Grammy Award-Winning album...."CALLING ALL DAWNS" by Christopher Tin
12 songs in 12 different languages that tell a modern-day myth about life, death and rebirth, and features over 200 singers and musicians from around the world. 'Calling All Dawns' draws from Japanese haiku, Maori proverbs, Persian poetry, the Torah, Catholic hymns, and other literary sources to form a rough narrative about the universality of human belief. I was honored to be invited to sing a piece which appears on this album, "Hayom Kadosh". You can hear it by clicking on the link below.
The album won in two categories, Best Classical Crossover Album and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists for the song Baba Yetu.
Listen at Christopher's website and/or purchase this amazing album!
"FORGOTTEN VOICES", Vocal Sound Library
TONEHAMMER, now 8DIO released a 'Cait' sound library in 2009 featured on their "FORGOTTEN VOICES" collection. 8DIO® is owned by Academy Award Winning Composer, Troels Folmann, who specializes in epic and emotional scoring which blends orchestration and electronica in various ways. These libraries are used primarily by composers who work in film, video game production etc. In the demo below, they created between 40 and 80 different ambient voices which you hear underneath the main melody, all created out of my vocal tracks.
Audio Clip — Tonehammer demo. Check out the demos and a short interview at 8DIO.
SOLO
I have been experimenting with the interplay of voice and drones, primarily with the Indian harmonium and its' smaller relative, the Shruti Box. Using voice as the primary instrument against the backdrop of drones allows space for development of vocal ideas and creates 'a place to depart from and a place to return to'. The drone-inspired song below is an example of a piece which contains Gaelic & Sanskrit-inspired "sound-words" which is basically a self-invented language. Since I have been inspired by many cultures and voices, these sound-words are a kind of composite of everything musical and lyrical that I love! Singing in my own 'language' is the best way for me to express a feeling or emotional tone of a piece and feels like i am truly singing in my own voice. (more about this process here.).Audio Clip — SUNDARI..demo version
Vedic Chants
Audio Clip — Asato Ma Sad Gamaya
These ancient and beautiful chants from India consist of mantric sounds which are truly a type of magical sonic formulae. "...Sanskrit Mantras are like simple energy; they can neither be created nor destroyed, they simply 'exist' in the universe. They serve to awaken the states of meditative awareness..and the actual vibratory field represented by those particular mantras can be experienced..." Russil Paul, The Yoga of Sound.
Typically Vedic chants are chanted in simple but precise melodic and rhythmic patterns. I am taking some liberties here by adding harmonies since that is what I start to hear when I chant them.
I'll be posting more mp3's from these and other projects soon!