I discover Kitaro by stumbling across a PBS special in the early \u201880s and was enthralled by the mystical world he created through his music. His airy, synthesizer-based approach was pretty far outside my musical tastes, but there was a thread of progressive music running through his work that caught my interest, and it was so unique to my ears that it was a truly fresh listening experience. This was around the time of his first Silk Road<\/i> projects, and predated what would be dubbed \u201cNew Age music\u201d by some years.<\/p>\n
Dream<\/i> is Kitaro\u2019s collaboration with legendary Yes vocalist Jon Anderson. \u00a0In Kitaro\u2019s ethereal soundscapes, Anderson\u2019s angelic voice finds a prefect canvas to play against. Anderson contributes to three songs, all themed along the lines of love and human connection. <\/p>\n
I have a pretty low threshold for extended play of what I think of as ambient music. In the case of Dream<\/i>, the African and Middle Eastern-flavored percussion and Anderson\u2019s vocals make it much more than just background music. Kitaro\u2019s gentle textures and smoothly flowing melodies are uplifting and inspiring, and they are complex enough to be elevated above simple ambiance. \u201cAgreement\u201d rides on a funky tabla rhythm and some slinky guitar lines, evoking Carlos Santana at his smoothest. \u201cLady Of Dreams\u201d features a dynamic orchestral section and some pretty heavy guitar as well. I enjoyed the more expanded musical accompaniment on these tracks in particular. <\/p>\n
A lot of Kitaro\u2019s work is recorded entirely on synthesizers. This isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing, but I do love the organic feel of the guitars, percussion, and woodwinds. A little electric bass doesn\u2019t hurt either. All in all, I\u2019ve found Dream<\/i> to be one of Kitaro\u2019s more accessible works and a thoroughly enjoyable listen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":29958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7499],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-41581","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-kitaro","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41581"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41581"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}