Old Gypsy Way of Calling Upon Spirit
Evil Spirits Be Damned/Clan of the Kukeri
The Way To Be Free
The Unknowing
Mike Tamburo - Hammered Dulcimer, Electric Guitar, Bass VI, Wavedrum, Percussion, Harmonium
Gallina Tamburo - Harmonium on Old Gypsy Way of Calling Upon Spirit
Michael Dodin - Tabla on The Way To Be Free
Anthony Molina - Mellotron on The Way To Be Free
Track 1 recorded by Eric Carbonara at Nada Sound/Forge Recording
Tracks 2,3,4 Recorded By Mike Tamburo at Sounds Eternal
Tracks 1,3,4 Mixed By Anthony Molina At White Light Recording Studio
Mastered By Eric Carbonara
credits
released March 30, 2015
Expansive inner-journeys into world-opening passages as told by Mike Tamburo through hammered dulcimer, drones and tones, and other instrumentation
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Mike Tamburo, also known as Brother Ong and one part of Crown of Eternity, has returned to his renowned practice of hammered dulcimer in his latest release composed between 2010 and 2015, The Way to Be Free. Travelled upon, dissipated, and re-worked through multi-layered wanderings, Tamburo’s The Way to Be Free treads old practices and phases through the complicated inter-workings of his most expansive string works to date. The Way to Be Free is a comprehensive exploration of an artist’s massive perceptual shifts as told through compositions that travel memories of past performance, the stripped bare return to disappeared collaborations, and the complexities found in the relationship between musician and instrument.
Culling informative listenings of Dorothy Carter, Alice Coltrane, Shivkumar Sharma, Robbie Basho, Sandy Bull and John Fahey, Mike Tamburo’s explorations of hammered dulcimer are positioned in deep wanderings to understand American identity through folk music. As a veteran of the DIY avant- garde and improvisation circuit, as well as his more recent work with meditation music and formless sound, Tamburo’s extensive touring has culminated in a multiplicative approach to the engagements experienced through his road-traversed interpretations of anywhere USA. How this manifests in Tamburo’s work is applicable in the sounds of The Way to Be Free: the music evokes a sense of experienced external travel defiant of a permanent destination, allowing the listener to act as a dislocated traveler repeatedly embarking on the recording’s voyages for contemplative discovery.
Tamburo’s The Way to Be Free offers the listener an intricate sincerity evoked in the album’s most tender renderings. As a companion to soft considerations, Tamburo doesn’t hesitate to present the listener with challenging confrontations. The most intimate moments meander into controlled manias, hard-tinged hammered dulcimer drumbeat regions, and controlled corridor-like repetition. Ascent comes at a cost in The Way to Be Free, and it is reflective of Tamburo’s journeys and exploratory phasing(s) necessary for artists to expand and grow beyond their foundations.
- Ed Steck
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Sounds Eternal is a new collaborative label started in 2012 and run by Mike and Gallina Tamburo with Brother Ong and Mata
Agni and Harnek Singh and Kaur.
We believe that listening is one of the highest forms of meditation. The music that we release will mirror that philosophy.
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