Michael Stearns - Sacred Site

Sacred Site was Michael Stearn's first appearance on the Billboard Top New Age Albums chart!

The grand emotions evoked by these large, spatial sound structures resonate in the mind with a power that seems conscious of the immensity of time itself. I'm sure if Bach is still listening he's pleased and possibly a little jealous... Sacred Site marks the return of Michael Stearns as a solo artist after five busy years creating spectacular soundtrack music. Stearns saw the dawn of the 90's while traveling to Indonesia, Thailand, Egypt, Costa Rica, Brazil and the Galapagos Islands to record indigenous music and sound effects for film assignments. Arriving with an open mind and a finely tuned ear for ambience, he left stimulated -- not only by the exotic soundscapes and unfamiliar instruments he heard, but also by the powerful, elemental music of these ancient worlds. As a result, SACRED SITE shows a deeper integration of brilliant soundscape recordings and multi-cultural elements into Stearns's epic cinematic spacemusic style.

The monumental synthesized chord clusters in his theme for Sacred Site - first heard in his music for Lyra (Return) and Chronos - have evolved to advance the art of the fanfare to the borders of the cosmic. The grand emotions evoked by these large, spatial sound structures resonate in the mind with a power that seems conscious of the immensity of time itself. I'm sure if Bach is still listening he's pleased and possibly a little jealous.

More subtly dramatic are his majestic theme for "Baraka," with its dignified Indonesian gamelan cadences, the immensely mournful American Indian chanting of LESSERT MOORE on "Paha Sapa," the musical voices of the forest dwellers mingling with his suberb location recordings on pieces like "Tropical Rain Forest" and "Twin Flame." These musical soundscapes create an ineffable experience with the quality of dream, documentary, and poetic reverie all at once.

Credits

All music COMPOSED, PERFORMED, AND PRODUCED
by Michael Stearns 1983-1993. © 1993 Earth
Turtle Music / BMI. MIXED By Michael Stearns
at Earth Turtle Studio, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
MASTERED at Hearts of Space Studio, San
Francisco by Stephen Hill. ART DIRECTION by
Stephen Hill. DESIGN by Hilary Davis. COMPOSITE
COVER IMAGE produced with Photoshop 2.5 and
KPT filters and enhancements by Stephen Hill
and Hilary Davis. PHOTO ELEMENTS of Ayers Rock
and night sky by Werner Krutein/PhotoVault,
San Francisco. The floating element is the
aboriginal symbol for the fire circle. MICHAEL's
SNAPSHOTS by Georgianne Cowan, Bego, Susan
Harper, Ron Peterson, and Bruce Simbala. FILM
AND SCANS from Star Graphic Arts, Foster City,
CA. SPECIAL THANKS to Ron Fricke, Susan Harper,
Stephen and Leyla Hill, Charlotte Huggins,
Jeffery Kirsch, George Landry, Mark Magidson,
Lessert Moore, John Morris, Ron Peterson, Ben
Shedd, Ron Sunsinger, Alton Walpole.

2-HOS-11038