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To explain, the liner notes say: "This CD consists of music commissioned by Shakti and the Vasanta Mala Dance Company for the stage production of The Woman in the Dunes based on the novel by Kobo Abe. As Shakti's performance is almost entirely improvised my only guidelines in the construction of this music were a series of emotions that would form 'secenes' and thereby shape a 'narrative' and a duration for each piece."
The Dawning reveals beatlessly hovering tonal sheets which transmute in a cascading radiance, not unlike sun rays streaming onto an endlessly shape-shifting ocean of sand. Occasional flute-like gusts breeze through the arid atmosphere. The mysterious and hypnotic Dance of Sisyphus siwrls amid multi-leveled drones and pulsations; minimal in activity, the piece rises/falls with a latent power, and is eventually accented by faint cricket-y accompaniment. Strands of melancholy seem to thread through the continually (and binaurally) reverberating notes of Dance of Fear.
A more-energetic bass rhythm cuts through the seismic shifts which churn beneath
Dance of Eros (12:49), then glowering through a shimmering string-haze. Though the mesmerizing chasmic thunder never stops, the riff temporarily vanishes, to return with glass-like accompaniment and faint keys. The stand-out track (though perhaps in a "sore thumb" way) is undoubtedly Shakti's request, I Put A Spell On You (3:24); the Screaming Jay Hawkins bluesrock oldie takes on a whole new spin when Nick Pagan's piano chords are added to Severin's synth strings, and topped by guest vocalist Jarboe's creepily over-the-top witchy/vaudevillian intonations.
Rapidly thrumming, pulsing Dance of Ecstasy glimmers with electronic twinkles and stirring synthetic breezes. Starker rhythmic notes are offset by blurrier passages and a briefly growling miasma of digital noise.
Wavering bellsounds and slip-sliding tone-drones are drenched in the golden colors of
The Sunset, their animated sky colors closing this day in the dunes.
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