Kitaro - The Stone and the Green World

[ellyssian]

I first heard the music of Kitaro from patrixa, who had one or more tapes by the guy. However, many, many moons later, when I went to go pick up a CD of his, I realized I had made somewhat of a mistake.

I picked up Spiritual Garden.

It turns out, despite my mom having, as mentioned, at least one Kitaro tape, the music in my memory was not at all in the same style of the music on this disc. I had crossed wires somewhere, and was remembering Kitaro's name with another recording by a different artist. "Deep Something," I recalled, and went out and picked up Deep Forest's Boheme. Again, interesting, but completely different from what I was looking for. It was aequitaslevitas who jogged my memory by supplying the correct name of the piece my mom played many a Sunday morning while we sat around reading the paper. It was Deep Breakfast, by Ray Lynch.

Now, the really funny thing is I already had a disc with Kitaro on it: former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman's Scenes. I figured the big difference between my memory of Ray Lynch's piece and what Kitaro played on Marty's disc was due mostly to it being a "solo" disc by a guitarist.

Turns out, on Spiritual Garden, Kitaro also features some guitar... but we won't hear very prominent fretwork on today's tune. The Stone And The Green World is a very introspective synth tune. Ironically, it's probably the closest thing to the feel of the Ray Lynch tune I had accidentally associated with Kitaro.

A very evocative solo synth lead line plays out over a series played with a poppy (as in "pop" like popcorn, not pop music) synth pad and some chimes for the first section, along with a light accompaniment by a forest full of crickets. After settling into some silence, a piano picks up for the central portion of the tune, joined by some strings for the final third, along with some Gilmourian shimmery clean electric guitar touches here and there.

The great thing about the serendipitous path that led me to Spiritual Garden was that, had I remembered the exact name of the Kitaro tape(s) my mom had, I probably would have picked up just that/those title(s) and stopped there. There are some things that grab me and say "this piece of music is important to me" and those tapes my mom played fall into that category. There are other things that get a deeper hold on me and say "this artist is incredible." Although I've yet to act on it ~ other than adding some other Kitaro discs to the wish list ~ at some point, I will delve deeper into Kitaro's catalog. Spiritual Garden has become one of my favorite discs, and has impressed me very deeply... and, with luck, we'll hear some more tracks from it over the next few days.