Music in the Realm of Fireflies: Improvisations for Peace and Healing

This is meditative music, created by a group of Japanese and Japan-based musicians playing Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Korean, and Mongolian instruments. At the album’s mid point, one track is devoted to Buddhist temple bells, their sonorous ringing hanging in the air and pausing time. A cello, a camel bell, and a Tibetan singing bowl complete the album’s line-up. Those who like shakuhachi improvisations will appreciate opener, ‘Zen’, and others will head for the intriguing blends in ‘The Vast Wilderness’ and ‘To the Other Shore’ of Mongolian morin khuur lute, Korean gayageum, Chinese guzheng and Indian sitar lutes, and the Japanese hichiriki court flute. Other musicians have ploughed much the same territory, but here all is pleasant and tranquil, never taxing. The evocations match the improvisations: ‘ancient [echoes] sung by someone unknown,’ ‘the sinuous pose of a lush bodhi tree in the wilderness,’ ‘deer wandering on the green grass, chasing the breeze,’ and ‘the lotus, bathed in light, blooms serenely.’