Kitaro An Enchanted Evening CD

AN ENCHANTED EVENING was nominated for a 1996 Grammy Award for Best New Age Album.

Released in the mid-'90s in conjunction with a video of the same name, AN ENCHANTED EVENING is a live recreation of most of Kitaro's 1994 guitar-heavy album, MANDALA. Sensitive renditions of "Silk Road" (Kitaro's most-record tune) and the sweeping "Heaven and Earth," from the soundtrack of Oliver Stone's film, round out the program.

The live ensemble (including a violinist, bassist, and didgeridoo player, in addition to Kitaro's keys, guitars and flutes) has the dynamic sense of a great jazz band, feeding off each other's inspiration and the excitement of the crowd. As always, the music shifts regularly from quiet, reflective passages to plosive thunder, usually within the same song, reminding us that there's no soft-volume requirement for spiritual music.

For over a quarter century, Japan's Kitaro has been an internationally recognized icon and globally acclaimed composer and musician. Influenced early on by American rock and R&B, Kitaro began experimenting with synthesizers and a rainbow of unconventional sounds in the mid-'70s. His pioneering fusion of electronic artistry, traditional Japanese forms, and pop-inflected Western idioms created a lush, harmonic, and poetic sound that won the now legendary artist a huge international following. 1980's Volume 1 in the revered Silk Road series is considered an all-time masterpiece, with subsequent volumes only adding to its luster. '87's GRAMMY-nominated The Light Of The Spirit, a collaboration with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, exceeded sales of two million in the U.S. alone, elevating Kitaro's presence Stateside to an unprecedented degree. 1992's transcendent Dream, made with Yes' Jon Anderson, was also a smash, and other highlights are too numerous to single out.2000's Thinking Of You, which online music bible allmusic.com called "one of the most beautiful CDs of all time," won a GRAMMY for Best New Age Album, and Kitaro is universally acknowledged as a founding architect of the genre. That being said, Kitaro's atmospheric, powerfully emotive, and multi-textured music truly defies the constraints of any genre, epitomizing what Domo Records founder Eiichi Naito identifies as the label's guiding principle—"To provide a home for both the creators and aficionados of quality music beyond the borders of categorization." Most fundamentally, at its heart, Kitaro's music is always about sending a profound message of peace and spiritual development, both personally and globally. With Sacred Journey Of Ku-kai Volume 2, the artist's lifelong vision coalesces into an elegant and wondrously integrated master work. The first in an important series, it offers a beautifully expressed and richly resonant experience through which to contemplate our changing world.

All songs written by Kitaro.

Personnel: Kitaro (keyboards, taiko drums, guitar, wooden flute, Tibetan long horn, vocals); Angus Clark (guitar); Lorenza Ponce (violin); Nawang Khechog (flute, percussion, vocals, Tibetan long horn, digeridoo); Diana Dentino, Keith Heffner (keyboards); Jeff McElroy (bass); Yoshi Shimada (drums); Derek Zimmerman (percussion).

Q (8/96, pp.121-122) - 3 Stars - Good - "...mixes acoustic interludes with stadium belters, heavy on synthesizers and guitar. Occasional[ly] features...a more interesting side to Kitaro..."