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Reviews: Emar ~ Sacred Soul
Posted on Saturday, December 06, 2008 @ 20:37:09 PST
Topic: Reviews
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Artist: Emar
CD: Sacred Soul
Home: Toronto, Canada
Style: World Music
Quote: "With highly spiritual lyrics, Sacred Soul speaks of unity and love as Emar conveys her feeling of oneness with the world."
By Beeb Ashcroft
Calling on a rich tapestry of multi-cultural influences, Sacred Soul is a beautiful and atmospheric blend of electronica and world music. Invoking rich musical traditions and styles, Emar takes both sonic and spiritual inspiration from around the globe as well as from her own heritage. Born in Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia, Emar later moved to Canada, where she has remained ever since. A bi-lingual performer, Emar sings in six different languages on Sacred Soul. Although she incorporates a medley of influences and stylings on this disc, they sit together seamlessly.
Emar has a haunting and beautiful voice, and easily jumps from singing in English to Arabic, Hindi, Persian, Serbian, and Church Slavonic. She assembled a talented production team for this album, including film composer Igor Vrabac, who adds a rich cinematic touch to "Tebje Pojem" and "Sheila, Sheila." Emar blends the sounds of traditional Middle Eastern, Indian, and Balkan music with modern dance to create a memorable sound. I often find that electronica-driven records have a tendency to drag on, which makes them hard to listen to, but Sacred Soul stays relevant and keeps the listener's attention.
With highly spiritual lyrics, Sacred Soul speaks of unity and love as Emar conveys her feeling of oneness with the world. There are several dedications to religious figures on this album - "Jamil" is in honor of Mawlana Jalal-ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, a 13th century Sufi poet and mystic; "Tebje Pojem" is dedicated to the late bishop Danilo Krstic, while "Tumare Darshan" is for Maha Avatar Babaji, the creator of Kriya Yoga. This rich tapestry of philosophies lends an otherworldly feel to the record.
I really enjoyed the blend of sounds on this album, and I thought it was very well put together. Emar has a wide vocal range, and I was really impressed with her dynamic work on this record. This is a hard genre to pull off, and she does it with ease. Sacred Soul is a very solid effort, especially for a debut; I highly recommend it.
Artist Website: http://www.emarmusic.com
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