DESCRIPTION:
Artist: Zakir Hussain
Album: The Elements: Space
Year: 1995

0:00 Shwas-uchhashwas / The Beginning
9:56 Deep Space
16:56 The Zen Of Space
29:30 Brahmand / The Final Frontier

"Space, the sky, ether... an element which has a vastness of concept, with many dimensions beyond those that are most obvious. I felt there were two approaches, the mythological and the logical, and I have used both in exploring this theme.

In "Shwas-uchhashwas", the first track, I have taken the mythological / religious point of view, envisaging the creation, with chaos, and the gods bringing an order to what they had wrought. But one of the first disciplines is breath, that breath which creates an airy vacuum between things, providing each with its own individual orbit, or what we would call space. Thus the concept of shwas-uchhashwas, the in-and out-breath, and the space in between, which is the universe. In "Shwas-uchhaswas" I have dealt with space around us as well as the space within, it reminds us where we came from. But, expressed through Raga Lalit, there is a sense of beginning, of the dawning of the first day; and the melodic tones ni-sa-re of the Vedic chant used for the shlokas are present in Lalit as well.

Having explored the space above, I have explored the space below : water and the space within that atmosphere, the image created and the whole different world that it offers. Space underwater is gigantic, beautiful; there are grottos, valleys, yet the depths have a sinister quality. I have tried to convey simply, minimally, a journey through this adventure zone in "Deep Space".

The next track, "The Zen of Space", demands the listener's attention and participation. Here we're exploring the extent of sound in a physical environment, like bouncing a radio wave through the ether and hearing it return in a different way, with different contours of pulse and beat. As the sounds reverberate, it gives the sense of ether vibrating and a feeling of the depth of space. This track relies on pure organic sound. There is silence too; those silent intervals are also space. In a rhythm cycle, each beat, pulse, attack, is itself a micro rhythm-cycle. I pause at each pulse and explore it and come closer to the roots of my creativity. The humming of the Tibetan bowl is a focal point of this sparse and austere composition, very much in the spirit of Zen, with a sense of fusing, of coming together, from nothing to everything, and I've always wanted to create that. Each listener will find his own interpretation of this track.

Brahmand, the Cosmos, is also the Final Frontier, and the last and longest track on this album. It's a concept in sound of the solar system, the cosmos, the planets. Each of these celestial bodies -- the sun, Jupiter, Mercury -- is identified by a sound, raw at first, which recurs at intervals, as we are following their orbit. As they start to learn their place, their discipline, they are represented by drums. Earth and Venus take the form of male and female voice respectively. Then we have the modern aspect of space, rockets, telecommunications and so on. But we go beyond space, or Space, into the Milky Way, an exploration of mystery, of infinity ... and yet another dimension."

~ ZAKIR HUSSAIN


not my music etc