Dreams of Sleep and Wakes of Sound

New Age zither master Laraaji began his career busking in the parks of New York, where he was ‘discovered’ by Brian Eno in 1979, later collaborating with him on the third of Eno's seminal Ambient series. He was brought in last summer by British songwriter Merz (Conrad Lambert) for a project in which a decommissioned Swiss power station was converted into a temple-like space and the audience made to enter, observe and leave the concert in monastic silence. The two artists are joined here by New York-based multi-instrumentalist of Pakistani descent, Shahzad Ismaily, for a work that could be viewed as a natural evolution of the gig.

Some of the concert's live recordings are featured, as well as new material from all three musicians, both collaboratively and independently. ‘Devotional music for the post-industrial age’ is how Merz describes the tracks, which can at times sound disjointed and atonal as on ‘Broken Shield’. Instruments such as the santoor (an Indian variant of the hammered dulcimer) lend a celestial air, with ‘Rent a New Place, Everything Could Change’ best typifying the Eastern, mystical spirit of the album.