eyes cast down

The Mar. 21 Album Premiere on Radio Spiral was a triumph. Big gratitude to host Diana Smethurst (Gypsywitch), all listeners and chatroom friends. It was a wonderful two hours, with Diana also playing my pieces Radha’s Tears, First Day Apart and Crystalline.

Over eight years in the making, this intoxicating, immersive, longform meditation piece weaves songs and chants from four performers into a transcendent music tapestry created solely from accordions and airbrushed percussion. The music is ideal for yoga and meditation practices, wellness spaces, and deep or background listening.

Accordionist Jaro “Prem” Czerwinec, best-known for his long tenure with the Cowboy Junkies (as well as recording work with the Skydiggers, Gord Downie and others), leads the way, along with singers Baliyan dasi and David Ludwig.

Pastimes of Creation is one continuous piece in three sections. Mystic Sleep sets the stage with a strong processed-accordion drone, barely-audible metal percussion and prior echoes of music, song and chant soon to be heard.

Last fall Greg Moorcroft appeared in textura‘s pages with a review of his fine eyes cast down release The White Island. A follow-up has now appeared, and though this one’s issued under the Mukunda’s Friends name, some of the qualities present in Moorcroft’s solo project also surface on this collaborative outing featuring accordionist Jaro “Prem” Czerwinec. Speaking about eyes cast down, Moorcroft states, “My music is intended to alter your consciousness, to tap into a timeless realm of ecstatic inspiration,” and certainly much the same could be said of Pastimes of Creation, the seventy-four-minute opus he’s created with Czerwinec. Both projects offer listeners deep listening experiences and the opportunity to achieve some measure of transcendence through music; in both cases, it’s immersive and infused with tranquility, even if eyes cast down more aligns itself to ambient-electronic soundscaping in contrast to the meditative, Eastern-tinged splendour of the Mukunda’s Friends project.

Moorcroft’s credited with percussion, singing bowls, and samples on the recording, while Baliyan dasi, David Ludwig, Daci Jett, and Leyla contribute vocals. Pastimes of Creation plays without interruption, even if it’s structured in three sections, “Mystic Sleep” first and then “Birth of Countless Worlds” and “Paramatma Expansion,” the latter two presented in three parts apiece. Interestingly, it’s not Moorcroft who’s the musical leader but Czerwinec, with accordion textures by the long-time Cowboy Junkies member prominently featured (his CV also includes work with the late Gord Downie and the Skydiggers).

With accordion and percussion the sole instrumentation featured, the sound design is minimal, though vocals add significantly to the music’s impact and character, something that’s made quickly apparent when the mystical drone that initiates “Mystic Sleep” is sweetened with the faint, chant-like vocalizing of Baliyan dasi and deep, Tuvan throat singing-styled expressions that emerge thereafter. Incidentally, that chant, which possesses the hypnotic allure of a nursery rhyme melody, becomes something of a unifying motif when it surfaces throughout the recording, tickling the ear every time it does.