• Jai Larkan – Piano, keyboards, programming and beats. Jai is also a qualified Yoga teacher.
• Chris Lane – Classical and Indian flutes.
• Herrin – Keyboards, programming, acoustic guitar and vocals. He also recorded, produced, mixed and mastered the album.

Want to contact one of them to say hello? Email us at support@astronomyrecords.com

Embrace The Moment

80 minutes of lush instrumental world music designed to guide you from gentle building warmups, through the inner fire of sun salutes and spinal twists and ending with peace inducing savasana and meditation.

Any serious Yoga Practitioner or Massage Therapist will find this album an invaluable addition to their music collection.

Atmospheric instrumental world music, designed to enhance your yoga or relaxation practice. Piano and Keyboards, Slide Acoustic Guitar and Wonderful Flutes by Chris from OKA make this album a unique journey.

The Review

This is ambient yoga music at its best. Original and fresh with a world music flavour, there’s not a single hint of cheesy cliché or overdone production here, pitfalls that can be rampant in this genre of music.

Embrace the Moment comprises six instrumental tracks that ebb and flow to a full 80 minutes of blissed-out sound.

Its subtlety and seamlessness make it ideal for yoga and other practices that require a certain level of groundedness and concentration. It ambles along inconspicuously in the background, gentle, calming, and uplifting, without being distracting.

While the album was created to enhance any yogic or therapeutic practice, you don’t have to be into yoga for it to appeal. It works equally well as an album of super chilled-out sounds that bring a relaxed vibe to any activity.

Play it while you write, create a work of art, hang out in the garden, cook dinner, do your tax or have a luscious massage — whatever the experience, it will definitely be enriched with this music as an accompaniment.

The masterminds behind the music are multi-talented Australian brothers Herrin and Jai Larkan, both successful musicians in their own right, who teamed up to write, perform and produce the album. They invited Chris Lane from Aussie band OKA to add gorgeous flute solos, a smart move, as the flute really adds a certain magic to Herrin’s and Jai’s subtle vocals, acoustic guitar, percussion, piano, keyboards and programming.

The interesting thing about this music is that it feels completely timeless and is highly accessible without sounding commercial. It transcends culture, sub-culture, language and age, so you could safely buy it for your partner, mum, grandma or second cousin twice removed and be guaranteed they’ll love it, because there’s simply nothing not to love about it.

Embrace the Moment has a kind of poetic beauty about it that seeps into your being without you noticing. Before you know it, 80 minutes is up and you’re pressing the play button again. And again…

Overall, it’s a nurturing sound journey grown out of a wonderful synergy between three highly accomplished musicians who obviously have a deep understanding of how to use light, shade and space to bring an enduring and captivating quality to their stunning musical arrangements.

Review by Leigh Robshaw

Didgera are a couple of groovers from the land Down Under who create awesome electronic and acoustic world music with a uniquely Australian flavour.

On this, their self-titled album, they’ve managed to capture the essence of the ‘wide brown land’ through a series of panoramic soundscapes that take you on a kaleidoscopic aural journey through stark landscapes, steamy jungles, expansive coastlines and deep into the ancient sacred earth.

Didgera’s deep grooves can at times sound as tribal and earthy as the expansive red Australian desert, rattling your bones with rhythmic intensity. Other times the music travels to a jazzier tune, with a dancey world music vibe that would be totally at home in a funky beach bar in Spain. If you love the Ibiza-born Cafe del Mar compilations, or the similarly chilled sounds of Buddha Bar and Trance Planet, you’ll have Didgera playing on high rotation after just one listen.

These guys are masters of mood creation, able to conjure up dreamlike worlds within worlds amidst swirls of effervescent sound with just the two of them and their swag of instruments. Dave Johnson plays didgeridoo, sax, midi sax, percussion and keyboards, and Zane Savage plays keyboards and didgeridoo. Together they’ve got the whole world music, chillout sound well and truly sorted.

While it’s the Australian landscape that provides the prime inspiration here, we also get spicy little sound bites from Africa, the Middle East and the Orient thrown into the mix, making for a truly soul-nourishing global musical feast.

The album comprises seven tracks totaling 64 minutes, a few of them hovering around the 12-minute mark. Relaxing and hypnotic, upbeat and energetic, Didgera’s music will float and spark around you like a multicoloured aura, enhancing any space with vibrant, mesmerising sound.

Website: http://www.didgera.net
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/didgera

“Performer , teacher, composer and recording artist, Dave Johnson is a multi-instrumentalist since age 10, bringing his passion for music alive on the street or stage in a versatile performance.”

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Herrinʼs Just in Time is an album of rich emotional complexity, lyrical ingenuity and musical integrity. He is a multi-instrumentalist, talented vocalist and an insightful songwriter and storyteller. He shares a generous amount of himself on the albumʼs 13 tracks, created seemingly as much to satiate his own artistic sensibilities as to entertain and engage the listener – a rare combination.
Its earthy and soulful sound spans myriad styles from folk to rock, with inflections of jazz, funk, world and Latin. He is an acute observer of life and his take on it is original, sometimes provocative and always very real. There is no pretense here, just raw emotion, a refreshing honesty and a bunch of catchy, meaningful tunes.

This is a musician who lays his soul bare for his art, resulting in a deeply intimate album that is at times moving and sad, as well as energising and inspiring. Herrin sings of love, friendship, relationship with self and others, nature and politics, within a lyrically-colourful canvas that blends velvety, powerful vocals with spoken word and poetry.

Herrin is obviously a can-do guy. Not content to write, sing and play guitars, bass, keyboards and drums, he has also mixed, mastered and produced the album and it has paid off, producing a holistic, integrated sound that do the songs great justice.

Standout tracks are the opener, Godʼs Cafe, a smooth and jazzy ballad with classy piano accompaniment by Zane Savage; the stunning, almost cinematic instrumental piece Arc of Rain; Oh World, an acoustic rock track that builds to a crescendo, with backing vocals by Simone Townsend; the gut-wrenching ballad Another Way, which highlights Herrinʼs vocal range and emotional dexterity; the epic Just in Time (parts 1 and 2), building from a soft intro to a passionate finish; and Anymore, a tear-jerker that exudes sensitivity.

Just in Time is a thought-provoking album that commands your full attention and feeds you its messages of love, loss, hope and pain almost intravenously. It is also a soothing soundscape to have playing in the background to add an evocative mood to your day or evening. It takes more than one listen to grasp its fullness, so make sure you spare some time to just sit back and let it sweep over you so as to appreciate all it has to offer.

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I settle down into my big comfortable armchair letting waves of tranquility roll over my soul, washing away a hard day from my tired body and tired mind as I listen to a very special, hauntingly beautiful album -  Lunar Khandro.

If ever there was music to go with the eternal dance of the infinite cosmos or just to have in the background as you picnic at the Sea of Tranquility on the moon, this is it. The three tracks “Dark”, “Still”, and “Adrift” carry your being up and out, somewhere away from the everyday worries, inviting us to slowly dance amongst its infinite beauty even if for a little while.

Simone Townsend’s bewitching vocals ease into you, transporting you to another place, another time, effortlessly weaving within the relaxing, brilliant  music of Jai Larkan.

Lunar Khandro is a good album to finish the day on, allowing yourself the space to unwind and let go of the tension you have accumulated, recharging yourself for the next day ahead.

Find yourself a comfortable place, close your eyes and let yourself drift away from the worries of the world for a time with this masterpiece of serenity and etheric beauty.

The striking artwork was created by the artists in a piccaso-ish burst of inspiration, letting this album stand out from most both visually as well as musically.

If all the people of the world would listen to this album just once a day, the world would be a much more peaceful and better place to live in.

Lunar Khandro is not an album that can be summed up within a few words, it is an album that one must be immersed into to understand the full experience it offers.

This has been your roving reporter Clip Tickles signing off until I am once more called forth to review another album.

This movie features music from the album “Lunar Khandro”.

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From the outset you know that you are going to be listening to an album with presence.
This man has talent that wraps itself around your ears and takes you on a journey of 9 superb songs.

From the title track “Where You Are” to the instrumental “Storm Song”, the talent of this man oozes from the CD through the CD player and into my ears.

Think of Leo Kottke, Nick Harper or Michael Hedges with edges and then add another to this class of musician, Murray Wall. On this album you can hear a competent musician, a man of thought and feeling who addresses issues close to his heart.

Murray Wall

“WHOLE NIGHTS JAMBOREE” and “FRIENDS” are both songs about finding some clarity amongst the confusion and complexity of relationships while “PEMULWUY” and the funky groove of “WICKED MOB” are both songs about the environment and the indigenous inhabitants of this ancient and beautiful country we live in, something Murray a committed environmentalist, holds dear.

He has a preference for writing instrumentals like “STORM SONG”, “PLATEAUX” and “OFF THE RAILS” because he feels they say more emotionally than songs with lyrics.
When writing instrumentals Murray explains he doesn’t have to deal with the limitations of words and can explore the world within the song in a more open way.
“It’s rather like a magic pudding that the trick is knowing when to stop, when the piece is written”, he says.

He often doesn’t know what a song is about until after it is written and given a title.

“WHERE YOU ARE” is basically a song about the exorbitant use and waste of fossil fuels.
One day while caught in a traffic jam and feeling deeply depressed about the amount of pollution being pumped into the air about him, Murray watched the other motorists being oblivious to the fact and he thought “Where are you?”

In this song he expresses the anger he feels towards those greedy few who profit from causing so much damage to the world we live in and the excessive waste of making more and more cars, exposing the mentality of our ‘throw out one and buy another culture’.

He has a wish that everybody would stop buying cars and see how we go with what we’ve got. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea.

Murray tries to find humour amongst the myriad of things that can bring us down about how we treat each other and the world.

He admires the philosophy of W.B. Yates, a revivalist of the Gaelic language during the nineteen thirties who said “You’ve got to tell it from where you are” and that, he says, is where the title for the album came from.

Murray Wall is a man of thought and empathy who feels him self to be a topical songwriter and he has addressed certain issues close to his heart on this album that spans the best of twelve years of song writing.

This is a superb album from a master of the guitar enhanced with a lovely voice that blends beautifully with his guitar style.
It will remain on high rotation in my music collection for a long time to come and should grace the collection of any serious music lover.

Murray Wall. Remember this name for he is a man full of talent that I hope to hear more from in years to come.
Clip Tycles

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Download MP3 Album Sampler – Dream Beautiful (9MB)

Earlier this year Blossomhead completed his fantasmogoric album called Dream Beautiful. It was the result of many years of surviving and investment.

This is a review of the album by local music mag aficianado, Clip Tickles. He’s pretty eccentric so look out for it!

What style would you describe your music as?

“If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that question, well I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this, I’d probably be on a beautiful, tropical island watching mermaids at play with the dolphins and whales while the mermen flap by trying to intimidate and impress me with their huge muscles……?”

Uh, sorry bout that’

It’s a tough question to ask a musician especially one like Blossomhead who has created an album that defies the boundaries of that question. I, like many, have tried to classify, file, index, codify, compartmentalize, box, label, typecast, pigeon hole and label the songs from the album DREAM BEAUTIFUL and like everyone else, I have failed to come up with just one place to stuff them into.DREAM BEAUTIFUL is an album of individual songs and one very interesting album of quality that goes beyond the description of one particular genre.

It is an album that lives somewhere else, on some other planet, in some other solar system not because the music is too weird or too strange but because it is unlike any other album I have ever heard before.

For a start it was recorded over seven years by two friends Greg Reid and Herrin Larkan who, it has been noted, the words creative, genius and maniacal commitment would suit very well. Despite many setbacks and adversity in both of their lives they continued to hold on to the dream of actually finishing the bloody thing, much to the disbelief of many people of little faith.

It is the only debut album I know of that has 24 songs laid out on the table for the listener to enjoy, so you’re sure to find at least one song that will grab you and not let go. 24 to1, now that’s pretty good odds.

As far as the songs themselves go, well lets just say that once you listen to them they’ll keep on dancing around in your mind long after they’ve actually stopped playing. Not in a maddening, “get out of my head before I go insane” kind of way, but more a “lets play that one more time” again and again kind of way.

I have heard many songs with great music and crap lyrics and I have heard many songs with great lyrics and crap music but it’s not often you hear an album of songs that have both great music and great lyrics such as you will hear on DREAM BEAUTIFUL.

Apart from the lyrics for “Cassandra” and “Alan’s Song” the songs were written by Greg Reid a musician with a talent for writing lyrics that reflect feelings we all experience as the complex, beautiful beings we are.

The lyrics for Cassandra were found in a children’s book called “The Lions Cavalcade” created by the eccentric and very talented English artist Alan Aldridge who in 1966 became the Art Director for Penguin Books and then became friendly with John Lennon and the other Beatles who asked him to became Visual Consultant to Apple, the company set up by the Beatles to help other creative artists.

He is an artist very much in demand for album covers and book covers but perhaps his most well know work is the wonderful Butterfly Ball.After a few roads that led to nowhere, Greg finally contacted Alan asking for permission to use the lyrics from Cassandra to which Alan agreed, thankfully.

I would place Cassandra as one of the strongest and more unusual songs from the album where the lyrics and music from two different artists unknown to each other at the time, have come together to compliment each other in a rather beautiful and artistic way.

I have visited the Blossomhead website http://www.blossomhead.com and although it is still being added to, I found it most welcoming and informative about the artist and some of the songs in general. All of the lyrics for the songs can be found there as well as brief background of the artist who I have come to admire for not only his creativity but also for the tenacity he has shown in completing such a monumental album.

Praise must also go to Herrin Larkan whose support, musicianship and engineering experience was a major factor in the album finally being completed in the form that it now is.

I encourage you the listener, to wrap your ears around this album as you visit the wonderfully strange world that can only be found in the mind of such an artist as BLOSSOMHEAD.

When I asked the meaning of the word Blossomhead, I was told that it meant “anyone who has a mind full of creative ideas that continually blossom out of the inner world to put colour and meaning into the more mundane world that is often described as reality”.

In the words of Blossomhead himself, “Some people don’t remember their dreams, some want to forget and some just Dream Beautiful”

Clip Tycles

Website:  www.blossomhead.com

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