Paradiso & Rasamayi

This album begins with the primeval sounds of didjeridoo and gentle electronic keyboards. You can sit down and simply relax. Your journey to your inner self starts… And it will be very exciting with Paradiso’s music.

Something shamanic and bewitching is present in his didjeridoo playing. And his music is very meditative. One can feel the voice of Mother Earth in the deep didjeridoo sounds. You can come back to your own primordial nature and feel your true essence. Maybe you will wonder how much you lost yourself in the present hectic world. But your own essence was with you all this time and it stays here for now. Feel it, be with it, it is so easy…

Paradiso is a master indeed. His didjeridoo playing is refined and the sound of “Middle Path” is perfect. Listen to this album and feel that the transformation time of our world is imminent. This world will be transformed but each human being must change oneself first...
- Serge Kozlovsky

Middle Path, by Paradiso, is another rare gem. 2008 is only three months old but this CD stands out as the year’s best. Indeed, it will take a brilliant effort to surpass it. While Paradiso (*) guards his birth name closely, he does not make any effort to protect his mission. He is a Shaman and is crusading to enhance humanity’s relationship with Mother Earth. “We are at a time when Mother Earth is going through a transition. We are the granted souls who are witnessing the change through human eyes.”

This CD, while divided into 11 tracks, is actually one large soundscape with several subscapes. Paradiso’s sound design incorporates exotic instruments (didgeridoos, Tibetan bowls and a Theremin), simple chants, percussion and electronics. He uses simple drones as his base. He builds atmospheres from the drones. He surrounds the atmospheres with rhythms and airs to create deep introspective space music.

Thus, musical greatness surrounds listeners and fills the environment with awareness and sensitivity. Deep listeners will be rapt as the music takes hold and guides them on a search for and of the soul — the soul of the essence of life! The resonance and overtones are powerful!

This CD is that brilliant as well. It is a collector’s dream — an ambient high — to find albums that have such an impact. It can be transformational in its own right.
- Jim Brenholts

There isn't a more organic musical instrument on the planet than the didgeridoo. A native one is made out of a five foot piece of a conically shaped eucalyptus branch hollowed out by termites. Doesn’t get more natural than that except maybe the groaning, booming sound that it makes when played. Now blend that very unique sound with electronic vibes, some great songwriting and a host of other acoustic instruments and you can imagine where Shaman's Trance will take you. Occasionally it sounds like space music and sometimes it is ambient, but it is always fascinating. It takes someone like Paradiso (Turturici) with a powerful imagination that crosses paths with deep spirituality to mix a didgeridoo with a Theremin. The result comes out sounding like a soulful journey that you can take in the comfort of your living room and come back with spiritual souvenirs.

Time Lapse opens the album with a low, rhythmic lead over a crystalline background. Honestly, it could be music you might hear if you stared long enough into an infinity mirror. This is space music. The journey is real. The rattles you hear have a strobe effect. Mentally, the images change every few seconds. The total picture is for you to formulate in your own mind. The tune is neither relaxing, nor is it frantic. As intentioned, it is a facilitator.

The next tune Ancient Waterways is a favorite. Natural sounds blend effortlessly with the primal music of water as it seeks its own level. Be it a cascading waterfall, a raging river, or a deceptively quiescent ocean as the givers of life, nourishment to a planet. Tinkling notes over ambient waves makes this tune a soothing reprieve.

The didgeridoo is the lead instrument in the song Land of Free Space. The title is a double entendre of a place where the spirit can flourish as well a place that is priceless. It could be in your backyard, in the neighboring forest or in your fertile mind. The droning didgeridoo murmurs along with some high frequency electronics and some warm synth washes of sound as you feel like you’ve just landed in a fantastic world. It is ready to explore.

The most dramatic piece is the finale called Truth of Nothingness. There’s one to ponder. It’s like of one those Chinese riddles, isn't it?Inorganic voices over a bass didgeridoo background and shifty flourishes of sound mixed with twinkling synthetics and thumping drum. It is as if Paradiso is an ambient juggler and he catches and throws the notes and sounds and manages to keep them suspended in perfect rotation. It is a remarkable tune.

Paradiso is a sound therapist, massage therapist and holistic health practitioner and fortunately for us, a talented musician. His training allows him to understand the real power of music in the regimen of holistic healing. I have always said that all music has cathartic properties and this album is a perfect example. Paradiso's electronic crossover album is an anomalous mix of organic and inorganic instruments that when balanced create a therapeutic listening environment. All you have to do really is sit back, listen and accept. Your spirit will do the rest.
- Rj Lannan on 9/15/2006

PARADISO
Middle Path
5th Element Music (2008)

In many cases, when a didgeridoo is used as the principal or secondary instrument on a recording, this frequently dictates either an ethno-ambient or world fusion influence. However, now after earlier hearing Fiona Joy Hawkins’ Ice: Piano Slightly Chilled and now with Paradiso’s Middle Path, I can throw that assumption out the window. Where Hawkins took the Australian aboriginal wind instrument and integrated it into contemporary chill-out, multi-instrumentalist Paradiso relegates it to a more textural/tonal role with barely a trace of the tribal or ethnic aspect. Yes, the “didge” here still “sounds like” it usually does, with its familiar bark, growl, and buzzing. However, the way the artist merges these sonic footprints amongst the assortment of electronic keyboards (which themselves vary from new age to ambient to spacemusic to electronica) is something which surprised me, which shouldn’t since the CD cover states that the album is “Electronic Crossover with Didgeridoo.” Well, I believe that statement now.

The eleven tracks (almost seventy minutes of music) each trek across a subtly (and sometimes pronounced) different musical landscape. Besides didgeridoo and keyboards, Paradiso also contributes on theremin, drums, Tibetan bowls and chants, the latter of which are heard on “Glistening Sky,” a song with a more overt EM sound combined with a midtempo percussive effect that is hard to describe. “Angel of Chimes,” which opens the album, employs the keyboards more as new age music “coloring,” with patient Liquid Mind-like washes and pads over the background didge. Reverberating tones occasionally ring over the flowing synth lines. The SF-titled “Winds of Mars” opens with a haunting drone but evolves into a curious mixture of swirling spacemusic and muted trap kit drum snare/bass drum rhythms, eventually building into waves of retro analogue-sounding synths and twinkling tones, all the while with an undercurrent of buzzing and sparsely barking didge. From outer space, Paradiso takes the listener into deep blue waters on “Ocean’s Spirits,” another foray into more “typical” electronic new age music, and featuring my old bugaboo, whale song. Oh well, as Paradiso uses it here, it’s not too distracting amidst the didge, layers of shimmering synths and keyboard washes/pads. After that, it’s into the deep woods on the arboreal “Cry of the Crickets” accented with wooden percussion, the titular nocturnal creatures, muted drum beats, and a serene sense of nighttime bliss.

Of the remaining tracks, the one that comes the closest to sounding what “typical” didgeridoo music is the aptly titled “Shaman’s Flight” owing to a lot more hand percussion and ethno-tribal beats, but even here the electronics are pronounced enough that you’re never going to mistake this for world fusion music. “Dolphins Healing” features the little sea critters lending their own voices now and then as well as the sparse application of Tibetan bowls. “Transport” is probably the most overt electronica piece on the CD, sometimes reminding me of Crown Invisible’s music, owing to a shuffling chill-out beat at the outset. There’s also a hint of Berlin school EM near the track’s conclusion.

Make no mistake, though. You will not enjoy Middle Path if you don’t like didgeridoo music. Just because the instrument doesn’t step out and command center stage attention often doesn’t mean you won’t know it’s there. However, Paradiso’s ambient/new age electronic music is more than compelling and mesmerizing enough that the didge can be heard merely as a contributing factor to the overall musical motif, not defining it. As such, if ambient/spacemusic fans can look past the new age cover art, they’re liable to enjoy this as much as those for whom I imagine the artist intended it. I enjoyed exploring this relatively undiscovered aspect to the Australian instrument and I recommend the album.

Bill Binkelman
New Age Reporter
- Bill Binkelman