Published on Jul 2, 1998
Despite over a decade of reviewing music, I’ve often admitted
there are many genres I have much to learn about. Two of these are
new age and world music. While I am no expert on either of these
types of music, I do know what I like when I hear it, even if I
cannot yet appreciate the subtleties of the songs.
In the case of Kitaro, we have a merge of both new age and world
music. His latest release,
Gaia Onbashira, was my first taste of a
multi-instrumentalist who has been called the “godfather of new
age”. And while the cosmic aspects went right over my head, the
music had some moments where it became very intriguing.
Much of the music on
Gaia Onbashira sounds a lot like songs I heard when I saw
the film
Dead Man Walking – very earthy rhythms backed by plaintive
bellows and chants. In some cases, the effect was quite eerie, but
it was used to its best effect on “Kiotoshi,” which had more of a
rhythm to it. In a sense, you could have almost called it “new age
meets pop” with some of the thunder in the chorus.
Ethnically, besides the obvious Japanese flavor of the disc
(rooted in Kitaro’s home land), there are also touches of Central
and South American instrumentations hidden throughout the album.
Songs like “Yamadashi” (which opens with over a minute of bird
calls – not the best way to kick off the disc) seem to have a more
earthy sound to the instruments. Whether these are synthesized or
actual native instruments I can’t tell – but if they’re
synthesized, they’re pretty damn good samples.
There are only two drawbacks to
Gaia Onbashira that I can think of. First, I honestly don’t
think that a lot of people are going to take a chance on this disc
(let’s be honest, had it not been sent to me courtesy of the kind
folk at Domo, I probably wouldn’t have tried it out myself). New
age music tends to have a stigma attached to it, driving potential
listeners away from it like garlic to Dracula. But the overall
peacefulness of the music tends to be a nice alternative to some of
the sludge we hear on a daily basis, and could be used to, as I
say, clean out the pipes (strange, that’s two reviews in a row I’ve
used that phrase).
However, in this strength lies its second weakness.
Gaia Onbashira is such a relaxing disc that if you’re not
paying attention, it’s going to go in one ear and out the other. To
get through the disc and achieve the maximum enjoyment from it, the
listener is going to have to carefully listen to it. Songs like
“Misty” fade out before you even know it has started – not that
it’s a bad track.
Is Kitaro worth checking out? I will admit, after listening to
Gaia Onbashira, I am a little more intrigued by this
musician, and plan on checking out some of his older work. If
you’re not careful, this disc might instill an interest in new age
music in you – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing to have.