Spirit Room
hunan | Littleton, CO USA | 08/28/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"If you like Sting's single entitled "Desert Rose", then you will enjoy this CD. In fact, Jai Uttal has been blending Indian instruments and percussion with western rock music for quite a long time.The first song on the CD is as strong as "Desert Rose". In fact, I like it better. There are several songs in English on the CD. The majority are traditional Hindu chants set to the creative arrangements of Jai Uttal and his Love Pagan Orchestra. Some sound very tradionally Indian while others almost have a India/Smooth Jazz feel to them. Jai Uttal is a master at fusing two musical genres thus creating an exciting, exotic and haunting new sound--but without damaging the integrity of either musical genre. This album is a retrospective of his four previous albums.I like it a bunch and highly recommend it."
This is a "best of" CD - and a nice one
Prayer Flags in the Woods | Humboldt County, CA | 07/02/2001
(4 out of 5 stars)
"... If you are a fan of Jai Uttal's, you'll really like this record. Then again if you are a fan of his, it is likely that you already have everything on this record. If on the other hand, you only kinda like him, or if you (like me) find the "concept" of Jai Uttal kinda cool (a concept that seems to me to consist of jazzy, rockin', westernized versions of "hindu" music - that is bhajans and kirtans), but feel that he has been a bit inconsistent in the fulfillment of that concept over the years - than I reckon you'd also like this record, as it pretty much takes the most successful pieces from his previous records and puts them on a single disc. That is a long winded way of saying: if you like Jai Uttal, and you ain't got his other records, get this one. Otherwise, forget it."