An Emerald City

REVIEWS OF CIRCA SCARIA
I do not want to sound insulting saying this is one of the best New Zealand albums I have ever heard, even though there is a part of me that does want to feel proud in saying that, so I'll just say what I really want to put down in print: this is one of the best albums I have ever heard. "THE DOMINION POST" *****



"Many bands claim to have an original sound, but I have never heard a collaboration as unique as this, especially from our own shores:this is avant garde psychedelic experimentation in it's purest form. A hugely eclectic palette of sounds making up this solely instrumental release. The album opens with themes of India with an instrument list including sitar, tablas, and the Persian long necked lute. Each song takes you to a different place, and deserves it's spot."WAIKATO TIMES ****1/2



"New Zealand has never produced anything that sounds like thisan exotic Eastern-influenced take on psychedelic and experimental rock.
World music doesn't get more rock'n'roll than Circa Scaria." NZ HERALD ****



"It was recorded among the black sand caves in Whatipu on the southern tip of Auckland's Waitakere Ranges but you could easily think it was recorded in Goa with its experimental Indian-style guitar riffs and percussion textures. If Ravi Shankar slipped some LSD with Hawkwind, Circa Scaria is what they might've come up with. Too good to dismiss as bong music, the album is a richly-produced meander through eastern-influenced soundscapes, epic violin solos and intricate drum patterns that tumble haphazardly like a gypsy bacchanal. It merely hints at what promises to be a great live set from the Auckland-based troupe. Listen with open ears." REAL GROOVE ****



"Middle Eastern sounds overlaid with waves of Flying Nun-style guitar" NELSON MAIL



"For my money this band is the most interesting, musically ambitious and creative I have seen in this country in many years. They possess that rarity in New Zealand music, an aesthetic sensibility -- and it manifests itself in instrumental music which exotic, evocative, rides intelligent dynamics and is endlessly evolving.
The instrumentation is based around rock (guitars, keyboards, rhythm section) but into that they pull Persian lute, sitar, violin . . .
It makes for an album that almost seems to grow in your hearing, to take on a life of its own.
It is quasi-psychedelic, improvised world music at one level, but sounds like nothing else in New Zealand's musical landscape."GRAHAM REID, ELSEWHERE