We are also forever delighted that East-West hosted Shambhu’s sold-out performance last November with David DiLullo and friends…and we hope to set up a new concert date soon.

“Shambhu has created a CD that is peaceful, evocative, pleasantly listenable and gracefully musical.”

~Paul Liberatore

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Shambhu
Sacred Love: Feel the Journey
www.ShambhuMusic.com

While there are many musicians in this genre hunched over computers recording in home studios (myself included), there are very few who have taken the music-making process to the heights that Shambhu has on his “Sacred Love” CD. Sparing no expense to work with some of the top people in the music industry, Shambhu set out from California for the bucolic splendor of Vermont to record at the studio of Windham Hill Records founder and Grammy winner Will Ackerman.

To say that the supporting musicians are an all-star cast would be an understatement, and includes bassist Tony Levin, who plays with Peter Gabriel, Eugene Friesen on cello, and a host of other top-notch musicians who tour with the likes of Santana, Pat Metheny, Ravi Shankar, Yanni, and more.

But at the center of this luminous universe is acoustic guitarist and composer Shambhu. In his own words, “My compositions reflect a diversity of musical influences from across the globe, from contemplative to Indian-jazz fusion to contemporary instrumental.” All radiating a “heartfelt feeling throughout.” This is simply some of the finest music of this type that I have ever heard.

One of the outstanding features of this project is that it is actually a multi-media experience. Shambhu thoughtfully filmed the entire recording process, and in the beautiful accompanying booklet, entitled “A Guide To The Journey,” as well as on his website are links for the videos on YouTube, which I found absolutely fascinating. “Sacred Love” is a journey well worth taking.

The photos above and below are part of a transformation that I’m helping promote. I work with ThingLink but I’m also a musician. And a lucky one that I get to pioneer something I feel is truly new, innovative and important.

Like lots of indie musicians, I’m always looking for new ways to promote and share information about my music. In this case, I’m promoting my debut CD, Sacred Love.

Now this is a post about images but I get to be the star too — so check out the photo below. I’m bronzed like Hans Solo in Star Trek.

You’ll notice small dots inside the image. They are called ThingLinks: in-image links from inside this photo to any place I choose. The tags act like channels to information I want to share. The tags are easy to set up with a description (250 characters) and URL. In this case, I set up ThingLinks to my blog, my latest press release, my Twitter and Facebook pages, to my photographer’s website, and there’s a surprise.

There is a Sound Player embedded in this image. Click on the play button and my song, Edge of Eternal, plays.

That is cool!

So for musicians like me, that photo – which I was only able to observe before – has become something more than a beautiful composite by photographer Mario Covic. It’s now an information wallet I can share throughout my social network.

Here are some things I can do with Thinglinked images that help me socialize me images:

• Announce my ThingLinked photo to friends and fans on Facebook and Twitter, and email a link. Fans can do the same. If ‘m lucky, I made a new fan. Thanks to this ThingLinked photo.
• Embed a photo with ThingLinks… in my other blogs and websites. The links stay in the image. And fans can share it, too.
• Allow readers to add their OWN ThingLinks to the image. I wonder where fans would place links.
• Receive stats from ThingLink (as part of a free account) on how many people are interacting with my images with views, hovers and clicks.

Try hovering your mouse over the image and I put links into – and see what comes up.

After you sign up at ThingLink.com, you add three lines of code to your blog or website page. ThingLink works on websites and blogging platforms. If you’re hosting a WordPress site, there is a beta ThingLink plug-in that you can download via WordPress.

Have fun and share your stories.

Unanticipated

I read the song titles and scanned the liner notes and I immediately got the impression that this music would have a strong connection to the earth. I mean the earth as a planet and as a cosmos. My theory was validated after the first two or three cuts. There is something organic in the music. It is almost palpable. Guitarist and composer Shambhu, along with many talented musicians created a plethora of emotional and romantic songs on his album Sacred Love – Feel the Journey. After I was finished I became a believer. I did feel the journey. The music has a rare quality to it. It is virtually lighter than aire. The sound is clean and pure and it was not hard to imagine, once I read the notes that told me that Will Ackerman and his studio musicians had their hands in the project.

The guitar and the violin dance an aural bossa nova in the opening number called Together. There is that sweet, sensual audible push and pull, sway and swirl and the surrender of two lovers into their own special world for just the time it takes to play the song. The music suggests that whenever they are together, they have escaped the ordinary.

My vote for one of the most peaceful songs ever written goes to Edge of Eternal. The horns and voices are that of the angels and the guitar melody is celestial. After a minute into the song you feel weightless, after the end, you feel blessed. Some of the credit is due from Jill Haley‘s English horn and Eugene Freisen‘s cello. This was my absolute favorite on Sacred Love.

The track Natural Moment had a funky east tumbles into west kind of vibe. It was likeable for its lively tempo, its great mix of sitar and electric guitar and its cheeky melody. It felt like the song was improvised, reworked and improvised again. It was just the kind of tune that had endless potential.

I can always tell when producer and guitar great Will Ackerman starts plucking on a tune and it was he that started the song Imagine. Ackerman has a quality that I call musical grace and it is that approbation that mixes with Shambhu’s tune and makes it on the one hand, very familiar and on the other, new and exciting. Together they make the music timeless.

Premik Russell Tubbs is the flute player for the ethereal tune Nirab Amare. The song was originally written by spiritualist and teacher Sri Chinmoy who is credited with a body of works in words, music and art that staggers the imagination. The free flowing tune sets the physical free to roam in the endless possibilities of the spirit. This probably is the best song on the album for its poignancy and sense of pure bliss. Chinmoy’s teaching of divine surrender does not go unheeded.

The final track is called Humility. The guitar is somewhat more insistent in its lead and the flute also plays a large part in a tune that considers man’s worthiness. There is a polyphonous marriage of sound that was not as reverent as I thought it could be, but more of a mild celebration. Still the joyous tune of Eastern and Western influences was pleasantly satiating.

If ever there was an album that invited introspection, Sacred Love is the one. The album as a whole was a pleasing blend of acoustics and a harmonious mixture of philosophies. And there is the overwhelming sense of the spiritual love. Shambhu is a first rate song writer and guitarist, and perhaps an even better dreamer.

Sending thanks to radio broadcasters worldwide who nominated Shambhu and “Sacred Love” for four ZMR Annual Music Awards:

• Album of the Year
• Best Instrumental Album (Acoustic)
• Best World Album, and
• Best New Artist.

Grateful to Will, Corin and all the musicians and friends who have supported the project.

Read More at Zone Music Reporter.

Calm all thought and quiet sound and stop movement

and just breathe slowly and close your eyes

and feel Love Love Love of Love itself.

And just be. Be grateful ….for having been …..

a Happy start of 2011.

~Shambhu

Photo by Mario Covic

When you integrate one proficient acoustic guitarist with select vocalists and instrumentalists, along with the skillful production talents of Windham Hill Records founder and Grammy Winner Will Ackerman, the final product might expectedly be a top rated album compiled by dedicated music professionals that virtually everyone would love and appreciate.

Shambhu is the proficient guitarist clearly asserting in his website news pages that his first album has truly been a “ labor of love “ while composing, performing and co-producing with Will Ackerman, along with his time spent working beside other top music professionals. This I can believe since at the end of the day, Shambhu and his insightful selection of collaborating musicians has paid off rather handsomely, and by their collective time spent together, have helped convert this debut release into a commodity of premium value.

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If you listen to Echoes and like my new CD, please vote here.

Or click: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JBJSF8M

You get 5 votes. My friends Todd Boston, Ann Licater, Matthew Schoening and Peter Kater also have my votes.

Deadline: Dec 9th.