Pearl

What is Pearl like? Consider the musical space between Jon Hassell's fourth-world Possible Musics and the more crimsonesque side of progressive rock - with a complement of exotic percussion, horns, and other assorted indigenous instruments coexisting harmoniously within a synchronized multiple tape-loop framework. The unique instrumentation, unlikely to have been heard before alone or in combination, includes the bronze-age Irish blowhorn, didgeridoo, Tibetan rag dung (long horn), Tibetan singling bowls, Chinese bowl gongs, udu jar drum, tabla, slit drum, dhumbek, and oud along with the Chapman electric stick, electric / acoustic guitars, and Kurzweil synthesizer.

Pearl features eight cuts taken from recording sessions from summer 1999 and during the first half of 2000. This is abstract music with a very human and universal center... an opportunity to treat your ears to new sounds and rhythms, and to evoke sentiments buried deeper under the skin. Although recorded on a multi-track, the music is still performed live without overdubs like earlier Second Sufis recordings. Many of the sessions were recorded during rehearsal leading up to live performances. The recordings were remixed with only a few edits.

MegaPlanet glass art by Josh Simpson of Simpson Contemporary Glass, http://www.megaplanet.com. Used by permission. Photographed by Tommy Olof Elder.
Dusty Road James Mott - Udu Mike Gorman - Electronic Drums, Tabla, Dhumbek Particle Beam Weapon James Mott - Didgeridoo, Tibetan Singing Bowl Mike Gorman - Electronic Drums, Tibetan Singing Bowl Jerome Pier - Kurzweil Synthesizer Guernica James Mott - Dragon Horn, Rag Dung, Udu Mike Gorman - Electronic Drums, Chinese Bowl Gong, Electric Guitar, Dhumbek Adrift James Mott - Chapman Stick, Udu Mike Gorman - Electric Guitar Loop, Electronic Drums, Tabla Annihilation III James Mott - Chapman Stick Mike Gorman - Electronic Drums, Tabla, Electric Guitar, Dhumbek Rain James Mott - Acoustic Guitar Mike Gorman - Acoustic Guitar Jerome Pier - Kurzweil Synthesizer Prayer Flags James Mott - Chinese Bowl Gong Mike Gorman - Tibetan Singing Bowl Jerome Pier - Chinese Bowl Gong, Vocal Mark Greeno - Zen Singing Bowl, Chinese Bowl Gong Pearl James Mott - Bronze Age Horn, Chinese Bowl Gong, Chapman Stick, Udu Mike Gorman - Electronic Drums, Tabla, Tibetan Singing Bowl, Electric Guitar, Oud

Jerome Pier appears on the earlier Seven Rays and Slave Labor on Mars CDs.
Mark Greeno appears on the earlier Seven Rays and Metroplex CDs.

Sound Samples
Pearl (excerpt)		Rain