Laraaji Albums (6)
'Enlighten: Musical Patterns for Healing and Enhanced Well Being'
Release Date 1/1/2005
Tracks 3
Label Gaiam
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What The Critics Say
Laraaji (Edward Larry Gordon) is one of modern music's most creative and diligent performers. He creates huge atmospheres and monumental walls of music with acoustic instruments, cutting-edge recording techniques, and dynamic processing elements. Cascade is a set of subtle ambience with symphonic elements and orchestral timbres. Gordon uses zithers and dulcimers to create these layers of warm and friendly textures. The drones are bright and melodic. This very cool disc will appeal to fans of Scott Kungha Drengsen, Jeff Pearce, Jim Fink, and Bruce Kaphan. ~ Jim Brenholts, All Music Guide
'Flow Goes the Universe'
Release Date 9/27/1994
Tracks 9
Label Gyroscope
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What The Critics Say
Flow Goes the Universe is in many ways a collection of the many aspects of the man, not just his music, but his personality too. Laraaji's performances for electro-zither and mbira are at once meditational and rhythmical, serious and humorous. This recording is edited from several concerts and studio performances around the globe. ~ MusD, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Edward Larry Gordon was a comedian/musician attempting to work his way through the Greenwich Village clubs in the '70s when one day he impulsively traded in his guitar for a zither, adopted the name Laraaji, and began busking on the sidewalks. Brian Eno, living in New York at the time, heard his music and offered to record him, resulting in this singular, unusual album. Laraaji uses an open-tuned instrument with some degree of electrification (and, presumably, with studio enhancements courtesy of Eno), which creates a brilliant, full sound. The first three pieces, "The Dance, Nos. 1-3," are rhythmically charged and propulsive, with tinges of Irish hammered dulcimer music mixed with a dash of Arabic influence. The layered production gives them a hypnotically captivating quality and an echoing vastness, inducing a dreamlike state in which the listener happily bathes. The two parts of "Meditation" are arrhythmic, ethereal wanderings, still effective if less immediately riveting. Day of Radiance is considered an early new age masterpiece and, while it shares certain aspects with the genre (including a heady mystical aura), it has far more rigor, inventiveness, and sheer joy of playing than the great majority of its supposed descendents. It possesses a sense of timelessness that has enabled it to quite ably hold up over the years. ~ Brian Olewnick, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Ambient fans must have had a shock when the needle dropped on Laraaji's Brian Eno-produced debut, Day of Radiance -- instead of the usual relaxing sounds came the echoing ricochets on the modified hammer dulcimer-like instrument that the musician plays. On this, Laraaji's 1987 album, he sounds more like Eno once they're apart. Essence/Universe is two side-long pieces that make up a whole -- long, liquid passages of treated zither -- sounding very close to Eno's On Land or Thursday Afternoon. The whole album glows orange and blue and makes for some pleasant background listening. ~ Ted Mills, All Music Guide
