Chakras & 5 Elements

This album devised by French avant-garde composer and multi-disciplinary artist Pierre Redon, explores connections between sound and healing. Several designated ‘masters of sound,’ including Mongolian throat singer Mandaakhai Daansuren, Chinese musician Hua Yifei, who plays the vertically-piped sheng reed instrument, and Redon himself (voice, percussion) are joined by ‘masters of healing,’ whose practices appear to incorporate elements of music therapy, science and magic.

Part one of this double album features musical responses to the concept of bodily energy centres, or chakras. The second disc, which includes sections of spoken word, concerns the Chinese philosophical ideas of wuxing, based around the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water). In truth, it's unfair to judge either disc purely on musical merit, since their sounds are connected to wider systems of knowledge and healing practices. Separated from this wider context, however, I found Chakras & 5 Elements, with its heavy use of drones and abrasive vocals, a challenging listening experience – a bit like being thrown into a giant industrial singing bowl and slowly getting pulverised into soup. That said, it's clearly a product of deeply inquisitive and artistic minds, and may be interesting to those working at the intersection of sound and healing.