Ashram
Silver Shining Skies
2006

genre: new age, gothic
1. 5 Steps - 3:07
2. Maria and the Violin's String - 2:58
3. Sweet Autumn (Part II) - 2:53
4. Lullaby - 2:19
5. Il Mostro - 3:26
6. All'imbrunire - 2:27
7. Last Kiss - 3:35
8. Elizabeth - 2:32
9. For Each and Every Child - 4:24
10. Tango Para Mi Padre Y Marialuna - 3:32
11. Lady - 3:11
12. Shining Silver Skies - 3:35
13. Rose and Air - 2:32
14. Ultimo Carillon - 3:50

I know you're pretty much wherever you are as you're reading this and, hey, I'm basically on the other side of cyberspace from you as well. Nevertheless, I can just see that blank expression of yours as you look at that lovely white sleeve art wondering what the bloody hell I'm rambling about this time. Hell, I might as well not even know myself half the time. By the way, if all that doesn't apply to you and you do in fact know who these guys are, congratulations - you're alright Un-knowing and curious to get rid of that 'un' part? Here we go...

I don't know if you're familiar with Hinduism at all, but if I'm gonna quickly sum up what all this stuff sounds like, it's worth me telling you that an ashram is a remote, isolated place where Hindus go for spiritual instruction and/or meditation. Combine that with the words 'neoclassical', 'gothic' and 'ethereal' and I'm sure you can hear this album chiming through your noggin already. To go into it a bit deeper, this album is a 50/50 split between songs with a vocal track slapped over the top of them and instrumentals, each song of either kind being fleshed out by a violin/cello/piano combo, with the odd augmentation of an acoustic guitar.

Meditation music? Possibly...although simply dismissing it as that and therefore any boring, knockoff new age tripe would be doing this album a real disservice. I won't deny that if you like to dabble in such things as I do then, yes, this music is pretty useful for that purpose, although I'd be telling you a big nasty fib I told you that that was the sole reason I got this album about a month ago. It was actually through RateYourMusic that I found out about this album as one of the most highly-rated neoclassical albums ever (I think it's top 10, 20 or something similar), and upon listening to Dead Can Dance's Spiritchaser for the umpteenth time, I was on the lookout for similar things. True, this album lacks the tribal, world-wise percussive elements that help make Dead Can Dance one of the most grossly overlooked artists of all time, but I loved it all the same on the first listen, to the extent that it's among my most listened to albums of recent weeks.

First off, this album was quite the educational insight for me as to how varied the neoclassical/new age moniker can be. I won't go into much more detail than I already have about that, but if you want to find out for yourself I've got an assignment for ya - get youtube up in a seperate tab and find Nierika by the aforementioned Dead Can Dance, and ye shall be enlightened! Secondly, to me this album sounds infinitely for dark and wintry than fucking Enya. Just a quick look out of the window on my immediate right gives me a beautiful view of the centre of Bolton in a now-fairly thin mist, snow on the ground and tiny white icicles on the limbs of the tree some five metres away from me and, with this album on the go, it's quite an atmosphere.

Thirdly and finally, I couldn't really recommend it enough to anyone who, like me, feels the need to have more of a look around the classical music that the modern world has to offer. Although the vocals can grate and perhaps come off as a little cliche at times, this Ashram's second (and, to date, last album) is certainly a lot better than their nevertheless ok self-titled debut, and well worth your time. It just unravels with repeated listens quite majestically too, which is always cool. I wouldn't quite put it up there with my absolute favourites in the 4.5+ bracket, so the following rating's pretty fair in my eyes. Very filmic music.