Out of the Desert

The inherently transcendental sound of virtuoso Tasha Smith Godinez’s harp fits her stated purpose in this recording of celebrating her Christian faith and her family and the Pacific coastal landscape along Southern California, where she lives, and the adjacent Baja California, in Mexico. Towards these ends she’s engaged frequent collaborators Christopher Garcia on percussion and Domenico Hueso on viola and has created what at times is fascinating and evocative, but which often eludes apprehension in musical terms.

Godinez works the tonal range of her electro-acoustic harp to good effect, with blissful arpeggios as well as sonorous soundings of the lower strings. Although the album abounds in simple New Age-y melodies, Godinez surprises with alternate voicings evoking koto on ‘El Amanecer’ and sassy twangs on ‘Infancia’. Hueso’s viola glissandi partner well with the harp on ‘Come Back to Me…’, one of several tracks favouring avant garde expressionism over definable melodic form. ‘The Path’ is particularly evocative, almost painterly, with the harp gently joining the recorded sounds of Godinez’s then three-year-old son Giovanni laughingly cavorting on Mission Beach, near the family home in San Diego. Acoustic collage extends to a somewhat disturbing but intriguing degree on ‘Landlocked’.