Search - Thupten Pema Lama, Steve Roach :: Prayers for the Protector

It was inevitable that synthesist Steve Roach would apply his soundscape designs to the deep, ancient, and often harrowing chants of Tibetan Buddhist monks. He's gone into the primal core with Aboriginal sounds and cultures on albums such as Dreamtime Return, and his Magnificent Void CD stepped into the abyss. On Prayers to the Protector, he works with the chants of Thupten Pema Lama of the Dip Tse Chok Ling Monastery. In Roach's studio, Thupten Pema Lama sang these devotional prayers and entreaties unaccompanied. Then Roach slipped them into his own soundworld, surrounding the monk with evanescent waves of synthesized ambiences. Being Steve Roach, this isn't the usual pretty New Age synth-glissandos, but darkly hued textures with metallic edges. On "Djewa takgya lingchee lhunbur dje" (a prayer for the world, according to the liner notes), he evokes the metal gongs and bowls of Tibetan chants as well as a freight train putting on the brakes in space. Prayers to the Protector doesn't dress up Buddhist chants, it just sends them into deeper space. --John Diliberto