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Connect with the deep pulse of healing earth rhythms as sacred chants invoke inner peace and balance. Award-winning artist, Steve Gordon, (Drum Medicine, Sacred Earth Drums) has created a unique new sound that blends contemporary world music with sacred chants for global peace. Ancient Shaman rhythms from all over the planet, Native-American Flute, Spanish Guitar, Tabla, Sarod, Didgeridoo, ambient- trance grooves and sacred world chants (Lakota, Sanskrit & Tibetan) . take you on a nourishing soul-journey. Steve is joined by special guests Jaya Lakshami (Lost at Last), Girish Gambhiva (Krishna Das), Wynne Paris (Krishna Das), didgerido master Peter Van Gorder, renowned percussionist Kim Atkinson and David Gordon(Sequoia Records) on piano. Drum Prayer is a healing musical vision that soothes, heals and inspires. This is music which is empowering, liberating and relaxing. It's perfect for everything from meditation to dancing your prayers!
Release date: September 1, 2002
Published Reviews
Malibu Magazine
Drum Prayer has a true shamanic heart and soul...combining ancient drum rhythms, native American flutes, Spanish guitars and tablas mixed with chants from different cultures. This combination is brilliant! The devotional chants for world peace are very timely. Whether Lakota, Tibetan or Sanskrit, these chants have a very soothing and peaceful effect. Steve Gordon takes the listener on a journey through many different moods and ambient sounds. This one is definitely worth checking out.
Share Guide
A healing musical vision that soothes, heals and inspires. It's perfect for everything from yoga and meditation to dancing your prayers.
White Swan
Steve Gordon has touched on something really special in his new CD Drum Prayer. Rejuvenate your spirit and let your heart fly. It's a journey of pure joy.
Daily OM
A longtime presence on the New Age drumming scene, percussionist Steve Gordon is a master at using the beat of the drum to entrain and synchronize human response to deeper levels of the divine and the mystic. Drum Prayer is one of his most effective works in this regard, a joyous, life-affirming trip through the beat-by-beat landscapes of the body soul and spirit. There's no filler on Drum Prayer, no waiting for the good stuff; it's all now. Eagle-eared and open-hearted, Gordon is keyed into each beat as if it was the first, last, and only. Aided by a pack of like-minded friends on didgeridoo, oud, flute, piano, as well as other instruments, Gordon lays out a breadcrumb trail of rhythm through the wilderness of the divine spirit, the canyons of the heart, and the deep-sea soul.
Opening with the arrival of the pink dawn on the desert horizon, with rattlesnake percussion, low and rumbling didgeridoo, and crying-hawk flute, "Where the Earth Meets the Sky" quickly establishes the album's free-ranging, animalistic tone. Thudding ceremonial drums and jazzy classical guitar are followed with Native American Lakota chant sung in a light, almost pop-opera, style. "Spirit Runner" features passionate flamenco-style guitar that is offset by a scintillating frame-drum rhythm and more chanting. Tracks stretch long enough to serve as good start-and-stop points for meditation or astral or shamanistic journeying, with each track granted a ceremonial welcome to the field via rattles and ambience before the flutes, guitars, and drums start in earnest.
At their pinnacle, the pieces extend outward in an array of well-produced expansive beauty, like blossoming flowers of tribal love and union. The idea of coupling ancient language chants to dreamy, high-registered jazz-style singing is inspired, lending the album a vague sense of 1960s-style tropicalia jazz groups, as on the heavenly "Season of Renewal." Steve Gordon has been forging the signature sound of what is known as New Age music almost since its inception, and on Drum Prayer his effortless mastery of the form is indisputable, his touch light enough to be carried aloft on the next canyon wind or through a hotel cocktail bar. The musician friends he's gathered around him for the journey (which include his pianist brother David Gordon, Jaya Lakshmi, Laurie Lovecraft, and Kim Atkinson) are clearly inspired by his magic, and you will be too.
Music Design In Review
The deep pulse of earthy, percussive rhythms is paired with balance- invoking sacred chants on DRUM PRAYER, the anticipated solo release from Steve Gordon. An exquisite blend of contemporary and ancient, the release features an all-star lineup of global fusion wizards including David Gordon, Jaya Lakshami (Lost at Last), Girish Gambhiva (Krishna Das) and renowned percussionist Kim Atkinson. Listeners will find themselves unleashing their inner shaman with Native American flute-laden, tabla-spiked rhythms that swirl with ambient hypnotism and samples of Lakota, Sanskrit and Tibetan devotional chants. A soul-stirring journey you don't want to miss!
Latex Records
First, Steve Gordon and his cohort David have become well known staples in the New Age and World music genre especially for their Native American drum works. This particular solo release by Steve Gordon combines his years of musical experience playing drums, guitar, flute, and synthesizer. The original concept of this album seems to have a strong focus on combining old world tradition and spirituality with the growth and evolution of mankind into new realms of existence. Thus you will find man traditional instruments, melodies, and rhythms combined with modern ones. However, only a third of this album was recorded by the time the events of September 11th took place. Based on the effects of these events on the artist he decided to slightly alter the theme to include creating each song as a prayer for world peace, inner peace, acceptance, wisdom, serenity, and for healing. The end result is an amazing collection by a veteran musical talent which combines many traditional elements with modern trance rhythms, keyboard, etc.. utilizing chants from various world religions such as Native American (specifically Lakota), Tibetan, and Sanskrit to bring about music that is suitable for modern ears yet carries the spirit and ancient wisdom of the past.
Beginning subtly with nature sounds and chimes and quickly building by adding shakers, flute, didgeridoo, drum, and guitar in rapid succession. The rhythm builds from one of a relaxing ambience to that of a dance beat full of life and rejuvinating energy. There are many assistant musicians and singers on this release and the overall effect is the peaceful and serene unity which the artist hopes to project. However, the added synths on the album as well as the more modern dance-trance rhythms help in the melding of past and present. However "Spirit Runner" is more focused on the guitar than drums and "Way of the Shaman" sounds like it could have been on the "Sacred Spirit Drums" album with it's flute and drum focus. "Holding The Vision" reminds me of the works of the little known Voice of Golden Eagle. Musically my favorite tracks are the first two and the last which sounds like another version of the first. I really like Jaya Lakshami's vocals on the first two tracks and the synth additives on the second with the tribal dance drum rhythms on "Emerging Power".
— TG Mondalf
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