While attending a modern dance showcase, I once again heard Pauline Oliveros' work. While the dance was entrancing to watch, Oliveros' music was sublime. I bought "Deep Listening" the very next day.

"Deep Listening" is an amazing sonic journey through ambience and resonance. The sounds from the instruments are altered by the performance space, rising, swelling, and receding. The music wraps around you like a welcome warm blanket, then slowly evaporates prior to the next composition.

I would recommend this music for meditation, modern dance, headspace scenes, and sitting in a candle lit room with someone of significance.

My only complaint is that the fourth track is so very different from the others. If you intend to space out and meditate to this music (entirely possible) then DO NOT let the last track play. The scratches, squeaks, echoes, clangs, etc. are not conducive to relaxation. If the last track was omitted or replaced by another that continued the expansive sounds of the beginning, I would rate it 5 stars.

If you enjoy ethereal drones, sparse and unexpected instrumentation, and hypnotic exploration of sound with a minimum of modern electronics, you will love adding this to your music library. It is truely unique. If you don't like that sort of thing, you will be very bored and wonder what all the fuss is about

This is a great CD - the samples provided
for listening give a solid idea as to what
the full disc sounds like, which is expansive,
trancey, and full of sonic nuances. I can
listen to this and Stuart Dempster's
Underground Overlays - a similar effort - for
days on end. I think this will appeal to those
into extended 'ambient' works most of all, despite
the fact that the music is unprocessed and
acoustic.

I am only being partially facetious in the title to my review. This is lovely and it is music to sleep by. It is deeply relaxing, and yet rewards careful listening. This is not some somulent ambient experiment by Stephen Halpern. The three musicians on the disc have impeccable credentials. Oliverios has been involved in experimental music since the late 60s, often with spiritual overtones. Stuart Dempster is an expert trombonist, perhaps the best in avant-garde circles. Panaiotis is new to me, but adds a percussive edge that keeps the music going.

The disc was recorded in a cistern in Washington State. Using the 45 second echo natural to the space, the three musicians improvise four lovely pieces based on drones. Oliverios plays a specially designed accordian, tuned in just intonation. The sound is deeply meditative and lovely. Weaving in and out of the accordian drone is more melodic music from Dempster, and percussive and vocal sounds from Panaiotis. This is ambient music. You can use it as sonic wall-paper if you want. But it also repays deep listening...repays it well.

Thanks as always to New Albion for it's interest in documenting unexplored areas of the music scene. And for it's lovely and spacious sound engineering.